Birthdays and the Like
by ItsJustMarty
Summary: A new creation of mine that I've been working on where we celebrate the Dex Holder's birthdays. Each story will have it's own description inside.
1. Silver's real Christmas

Okay, I'd been planning this since Yellow's birthday last year. Now, after trying to get this off the ground, I give Silver's birthday present to him. And I'm also going to do it for the other characters too so next up is Yellow's I think. Anyway.

Summary: Well if you were Silver's shoes do you think you'd get many Christmases? He just doesn't feel why Christmas matters. Yellow, on the other hand, wants him to feel it. So as my, and her gift to Silver, the warm fuzzy feeling of Christmas. ^_^

I want to say more but I'll wait til the end. Later.

* * *

Sad thing is, Christmas either has less and less meaning each year after your growing maturity, or it takes longer to get into the spirit. Or at least that's how it seems. Which didn't help Silver at all. He had been kidnapped when he was too young to remember, and in addition to the lack of holidays in the Mask of Ice's care, there wasn't very much reason to celebrate. The most Silver had known of Christmas was what Blue had told him. However, since their escape, Silver had gotten a few more friends, particularly fellow Dex Holders, like Gold and Crystal for example. His perverted and obnoxious but likeable and goodhearted in essence friend and his slim, fit, sweet, determined and intellectual friend respectively, though admittedly he had only so much interaction with Crystal. Thanks to this, he knew of Christmas but still felt deprived of the holiday's overall feeling.

In his most recent year, he had managed to find his father, his only known family member. He'd spent basically every Christmas like the rest of the year, looking for his family or helping Blue. If nothing else, Blue or Silver would at least call each other. For two reasons, because of Christmas, which Blue remembered more fondly than Silver, and so Blue could say "happy birthday". Silver had almost no emotional connection to the holiday but was ironically born on Christmas Eve, December 24th. Technically, this was the first Christmas where Silver could sit down and enjoy it. Yet it seemed so… difficult.

He felt it should've been easier but he also felt it was too late for him at this point. Although Gold would've let Silver spend Christmas with him, his mother wouldn't've minded. But Silver was usually no where around. The most that'd happened to him was that he'd gone to see Blue, to see how she was doing with her parents, that and the Christmas Party that Dex Holders attended as a reunion of sorts, and even then, Gold bugged him as usual and Crystal stopped to say hi to him but he'd mostly talked to Blue. He saw little point, the decorations, the customs. Silver just didn't see the happiness.

At the moment, he had been heading home and stopped to sit on a bench, relatively cleared of snow. He sat and thought to himself. Christmas time nor his birthday for that matter held very much significance to him. He had been exposed to the basic idea, but he was missing the tingling sensation it was supposed to have.

"Silver?" Came a voice.

He turned his head to see Yellow. A fellow Dex Holders, and though she was mostly Blue's friend, Silver owed her a lot. Particularly, it was mostly thanks to her help in Viridian City that he found his father and his roots.

"What're you doing out here? You'll catch a cold." She said softly.

"I'm fine; I grew up in an ice covered area." He replied.

"That's not entirely true, you escaped for one and you're not done growing yet." Yellow said reassuringly, "But why're you here? Why aren't you at home?"

Silver paused, "I don't know, I just am." He said.

Yellow took a second to respond, "…Well." She bent over and wiped some snow from the bench before sitting next to Silver, "Mind if we talk?" She asked.

"Why?" Asked Silver.

Yellow lifted her eyes up to the sky for a second to think, then looked back at Silver, "Just because."

Silver, as usual, stayed quiet at first, "…Well since you bothered to clear yourself a seat."

Yellow smiled sweetly, then she began the conversation; "So how are things with your dad?"

"Fine." Silver replied with his usual quiet and withdrawn personality.

"Where is he now? Are you guys coming back to Viridian?" Yellow asked.

"He's in one of my secret bases _near_ Viridian but given his past actions, I don't know if we'll ever be able to just assume public lives." He replied dryly.

"I see." Yellow said looking downward.

"Besides, if I told you where he is…" Silver looked distrustfully at Yellow, "how do I know you wouldn't turn him in?"

"Oh Silver, I wouldn't." Yellow said promisingly.

"Really? Even considering his actions in Viridian Forest five years ago." Silver continued skeptically.

"Forgive and forget, it _was_ five years ago." Yellow smiled, "Anyway you don't have to tell me where he is or anything."

Silver thought Yellow's words could be trusted. After all, she didn't turn him into the police for stealing a Pokémon. Probably because the Pokémon he'd stolen was happy with him. But he stayed silent.

"So how is your Christmas going?" Yellow asked another question, trying to keep the conversation going.

"Alright." Silver replied.

"Just alright?"

"Whatta you want me to say?"

"Well, nothing it's just… Blue told me about how you haven't really had a real Christmas before, so I was just hoping this one would go well for you." Yellow said.

Silver stayed quiet before accumulating a response, "That's very nice of you." Silver told her.

Yellow smiled. Maybe it was just his upbringing with Blue but Silver always tried to be more polite or as polite as possible around women, provided of course they weren't the enemy.

"Thank you." She all but whispered.

"Yeah, and if you must know, I'm not really feeling anything out of the ordinary."

"Oh really?" Yellow said back sympathetically, "You're just not feeling it?"

"I know people say there's a tingling feeling." Silver said.

"There's also this warm, happy, fuzzy felling you get." Yellow further described.

Silver moved his eyes to his perky, cheery subordinate. She smiled in her usual way that made you think it was her default, unaltered face, while Silver had his blank, "quiet type" face about him.

He grinned darkly, "Warm huh? No wonder I can't seem to feel it."

Yellow's smile faded and she cocked her head curiously, "What does that mean?"

"I'm a cold person and I haven't exactly had a warm environment to be brought up in." He explained.

"…I don't think that's entirely true." She said softly, "You've always had Blue, and you can be really nice."

"Give me one instance." Silver said skeptically.

"We're talking right now and you were nice enough to give me the time of day, and you've been really polite so far. I don't think you're cold at all."

"Really?" Silver said in his same skeptical and even "yeah right" tone.

"Yep." Yellow answered, bubbly and cheery as ever.

Silver looked at her. If nothing else, she at least _looked_ like she was telling the truth. Her smile always seemed trustworthy, even magical if he so chose to call it. However, this only meant that _she_ didn't see him as a cold person, not that he was supposed to agree. It was at least nice to have someone see him _as_ nice.

"I never did say thank you did I?" Silver asked.

"For what?" Yellow asked.

"Back when I came to Viridian to find out who I am, and where I came from. I never asked you for your help but you helped a lot."

"When we first met?" Yellow tried to confirm.

"No, technically I've known you or, more accurately known _about_ you for two years now."

Yellow smiled, "Well okay, when we first got to know each other."

"Basically when you helped me and then we _didn't_ have to stop and snap our fingers just trying to remember each other's names." Silver sarcastically explained.

Yellow giggled. For one reason or another, this made Silver smile relaxantly.

"So, thank you."

"Anything you need." Yellow assured.

Silver looked relaxed as he closed his eyes and smiled (this is supposed to be viewed as manga style, so half the time they'd "smile" they'd close there eyes anyway, so keep that in mind).

"I should probably be going. I've been out longer than I planned to be, and I left some of my Pokémon to watch the house, so they probably miss me."

"I didn't mean to keep you." Silver said.

"Oh no, Silver, you didn't, _I_ chose to stop. And you're doing it again by the way." Yellow said.

"Doing what?" Silver asked curiously.

"Being polite. See? You're not a cold person at all!" Yellow said happily.

Silver looked upwards to his right and didn't say anything. Perhaps he was just thinking over what Yellow said. She did bring up a valid point, Silver _was_ being relatively nice to her. Maybe she reminded him of Blue, or maybe she was just easy to be nice to given how nice _she_ is.

"Silver?" Yellow spoke out after exactly nine seconds of silence.

"Yeah?" He replied.

"Would you escort me home? I mean, if it's not much trouble, I-" She stopped herself.

"Uh, no it's no trouble." He said standing up.

"Thanks." Yellow said with a closed eyed smile.

"Yeah." Silver ended, and they began walking north together.

Yellow thought for a minute about what to say, then asked; "So, you expecting anything nice this year?"

"Wha-? Oh, because it's Christmas, um, no not really." Silver replied.

"Didn't ask for anything?"

"Not really. I don't really have any Christmassy mannerisms like expecting presents? You?"

"Ah, me neither. I'm happy with what I have, and my Uncle comes to visit so I'm ecstatic around this time of year anyway because I know he's coming over."

"Must feel great."

"It does, I owe him a lot."

"How far away _is_ your house?" Silver asked.

"In a hurry to get rid of me?" Yellow joked.

She giggled while Silver acknowledgingly smiled.

"It's just up ahead, up this street and around that corner right there, then you turn left at the next turn up ahead and it's by the forest." She explained.

(If directions to your house include "turn off the pathed road"… You might be a Pokémon Trainer)

"Okay."

They came to said corner and crossed the street while Yellow continued to speak to Silver, "So what do you want to talk about before we get there?" She asked.

"I don't know." Silver replied.

"Um…" Yellow held her finger to her bottom lip and looked up, pondering for a decent topic.

Silver thought for a second before thinking to ask a question, "Hey Yellow?"

"Hm?"

"Remember when we were battling those two from Team Rocket? Sird and Orm I believe."

"Yeah."

"I'm still a little… intrigued by what you did."

"Whatta you mean?"

"How did you raise your Pokémon's levels?"

"I can just do that when my 'spirit raises' I believe they said it was."

"Is that what happened?"

"Kinda."

"So does it happen when you get angry?"

"No I'm not the kind of person who gets mad easily."

"I'm not so sure, you seemed pretty angry when you're Pokémon's levels rose. Something about not wanting the forest to be tainted."

"Well I felt strongly about that. The Viridian Forest is where I was born; it's where I spent a lot of my time. It's sacred to me."

Silver paused before replying, "I see."

"And I wasn't really mad I don't think." Yellow continued, "I was just serious and determined about protecting the forest."

"So then, as far as controlling your Pokémon's level goes, what would _you_ call it?" Silver asked.

"I…" She stumbled, "I don't know, 'willpower'?"

"Willpower?"

"Something like that."

"What exactly do you mean by 'willpower'?"

"It's hard to explain. I think it's just control over my emotions more than anything. I become really in tune with my Pokémon and… I just have trouble explaining it. It's just part of my Viridian Powers. Does that answer your question?"

Silver was silent, "For now I suppose." He finally said, "But that's not all."

Yellow looked at Silver quizzically.

"You seemed awfully worried about me, even though you hardly knew me back then."

"Well I hardly know you now." Yellow said and then giggled.

Silver calmly smiled for a second before continuing, "Still, why bother?"

"Well we just talked about an incident five years ago involving Giovanni and the forest. I was just worried you might get hurt." Yellow said.

"Why?"

"Why not? I mean, I didn't know you too well but that doesn't mean you don't matter. It's just common courtesy, and besides it's in my nature. I just couldn't let anything happen to you." She said in a soft, sympathetic voice and with a look about her to match, a certain twinkle in her eye, soft and sympathetic.

Silver was silent once again, he looked towards the ground, "You'll have to excuse me, I'm not used to that sort of treatment."

"Neither was Blue." Yellow said, smiling sweetly.

They turned the next corner, and up ahead was an entrance to the forest. Silver couldn't help but take notice of the Gym some distance away. It was dark; all of its light's were off. Which only made sense since Green, who was the current Gym Leader, was in Pallet Town at the behest of his sister and grandpa. And there was a modest, two storey house, just outside the forest.

"Is that it?" Silver asked.

"Yeah." Yellow replied.

"That didn't seem too far. Why did you need me again?"

Yellow looked up, "Mm." She thought for a second, "I guess I just wanted to talk."

"Why is that? Common courtesy again?"

"Well, no. I just wanted to talk to you."

Silver turned his head completely to Yellow's direction, paying no mind to what was in front of him, with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" Yellow asked.

"Now I'm really confused, why would you 'just want to talk'? I don't think I ever gave off any sign that I would be a good conversationalist."

Yellow smiled, "I don't know, you turned out to be one."

Silver didn't reply.

"Besides, you never really know what talking to someone will be like until you do it."

"I begged to differ." Silver could usually guess what a person would be like but he never felt like he necessarily had to talk them.

Yellow chuckled warmly, "Hmhm. Well, you know, _I_ wanted to know what talking to _you_ would be like. And besides there was a bit of curiosity floating around, for one I wanted to know if you were having a good Christmas. Considering just how much you deserve one."

"Ah yes, back on the subject of Christmas are we?"

"Tis the Season." Yellow said happily.

"Well you already act like its Christmas all year round from what I hear." Silver said plainly.

"Well I don't know about that. I'm not usually as excited as Christmas makes me."

"I wouldn't know the feeling."

"Well," Yellow grabbed both of Silver's hands with her own and held them up to her, "that's exactly why you deserve a good Christmas. You should have that feeling, you deserve it." She said very softly and sweetly.

Silver was unsure what to make of Yellow's behavior. He looked at her with more opened eyes than he had before, "Um… Okay, thanks." He said flabbergastedly.

Yellow sweetly closed her eyes and smiled.

Silver bashfully turned his eyes to his left, "Is this it?" Silver asked, standing nearly next to the house Yellow said was hers.

"Yes." She replied.

"Okay, let's go." He turned and pulled Yellow by the hand up the porch.

"Wha- Silver, wait!" He had already pulled to the top of the stairs before he stopped to hear her, "Wait! I…"

"What?" Silver looked at her with some concern.

She blushed bright red, "I-I… I have a…" She continued to blush, she paused and then she ducked her neck into her collar in embarrassment, "Mistletoe." She said quietly.

Silver looked confused at first. Yellow meekly pointed upward. Low and behold, there was the mistletoe. Yellow wasn't exactly a romance enthusiast. But all the romance stories and romantic experience in the world couldn't have prepared her for what Silver had to say about it.

"Mistletoe?" He said quizzically.

Yellow was surprised by his answer, "You don't know what a mistletoe is?"

"No, why? You seem concerned."

"Um. I-it's nothing." Yellow stammered.

"Then why bother to point it out?" Silver said near challengingly.

"Well, I-I. M-maybe I just wanted you to see it, I mean, I think it's pretty."

"Then why blush and stammer?"

"I…" She sighed, letting go of the breath that'd been building up in her chest, "Look, Silver, I'm a terrible liar. The truth is, when a boy and a girl are under the mistletoe, they have to… to…"

"What?" Silver egged on.

"K-… Kiss each other." She forced out.

"Oh. O-oh!" Silver stammered.

Yellow blushed and kept looking at Silver bashfully.

Silver could _only_ notice the blush on her face, "Look, Yellow, we've already disclosed that I'm not a very holiday oriented person. I don't really care about tradition; so, don't think you have to do anything you aren't comfortable with-"

His words were stopped cold in their tracks, as Yellow quickly stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him as fast as she could on his left cheek. Silver's eyes burst as open as they could get. He looked at Yellow, absolutely stunned. She was still bright red, and she was smiling at him too.

"There it is again, you really are kinder than you give yourself credit for Silver. How could I _not_ be comfortable?"

Silver kept staring at her; he couldn't believe his ears, "Um… Th-thank you." He forced out.

Yellow smiled again, then she said; "Just think of it as your present for this year."

Silence fell over them. Not an awkward silence but rather, a peaceful one.

"I should probably head inside now." Yellow said.

"Yeah, my father's probably wondering where I am. I wouldn't want to worry him."

Yellow turned to her door while Silver started down the stairs.

"Good bye." Yellow said.

"Bye." Silver replied.

Yellow was halfway in the door when she stopped and turned, "Oh, and Silver."

"Merry Christmas?" He said predictingly.

Yellow smiled softly and her eyelids lowered halfway, "Happy Birthday." And without another word, she closed the door.

Silver turned around as quickly as he could. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard. How could she have possibly known it was his birthday? Blue must've told her. After all, Blue acted sisterly to Yellow much like she acted sisterly to him.

He felt differently than he had before. Something he wasn't quite familiar with. He felt a tingling sensation… It felt… like there was a growing warmth inside him. It was everything all those people said it would be, everything Yellow said it would be. It was one heck of a feeling.

Silver smiled and thought; "Maybe there's something to this Christmas stuff after all."

* * *

Okay, first off. I acknowledge that Silver and Crystal could talk to each other a lot more, but I still LOVE SpecialJewelShipping, and they STILL have more interaction than Blue and Green.

Next, I know it's "the mistletoe" or just "mistletoe" not "a mistletoe", but you can get away with saying "a mistletoe" in conversation, so there you go.

Next, about the FRLG arc when Yellow rose her Pokemon's levels. How was that angry? For the record, how could you cal it "uncontrolable rage"? That's ridiculous. I mean uncontrolable rage is "HULK SMASH!!!"(Hulk) or "The RAGE of the RED LANTERNS!!!"(Green Lantern, Red Lantern) or "I'M SUPER**MAN**-PRIME!!!"(Superboy-Prime/Superman-Prime), not "I don't wish to see this forest tainted any further"(Yellow) I mean that's more like "Lady I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the store"(Ash's line from Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness). The only "angry" thing I saw was that her eyebrows were furrowed and you do that when you're focused. So even if she was mad, it wasn't uncontrolable rage like some people say it was. I mean the words "mad", "anger" or "angry" are never even brought up. Where the hell do people get the idea that THAT is angry? If you precieve THAT as angry, you don't know what angry IS. By PokeSupe standards, Red screaming "ANSWER ME!!!" is angry. And people say _Red_ is dense.

I could rant on forever about it but I have work to do. I hope you enjoyed the story. ^_^


	2. For the Girl who Needs Nothing

Well, here it is. Happy Birthday Yellow! And it's on time this time!(Oh come on, considering I had to go to school today, AND I started this fic yesterday, 6:25 is a good finish time right?)

Summary: Yellow never seems to need or want anything. Material wise anyway. So what do you get her for her birthday? What do you get for someone who needs nothing to be happy? Well, of all people, BLue thought of that and has an idea. Let's see what she can do for her.

No intended pairings but, I guess JadeShipping and Yellow x Ruby if you wanted to look at that way but I don't. I know most fanboy/girls don't understand the concept of platonicism but the relationship is _platonic_.

* * *

**For the Girl who Needs Nothing**

March Second

To all the Dex Holders, it seemed as though Yellow needed absolutely nothing she doesn't already have. She could draw, she could fish, she had her Pokémon and she had her friends, how could she ask for anything more? That's great right? Normally yes. But it was her birthday, and she would always say she didn't want anything.

On, one hand, it was easy for her to tell them not to spend a whole lot or anything on her at all. She thought she was making it convenient for them, and not that it wasn't but what she didn't realize was that her friends _wanted_ to do something nice for her. So the first three Dex Holders before her and the next three after her, each with their own special reason for liking Yellow, at the conundrum of, "what should I get Yellow for her birthday?" Red impiticular was so strapped for what to do he went over to Blue's house, who was having the same problem. In between the flirting and the stammering in response to the flirting, they spent the whole day trying to think of a gift or an event that would make for a good birthday and came up with nothing.

Yellow had sat by the river bank most of the day, relaxing. She was walking home with her Pikachu "Chuchu" in her arms when she came across someone familiar.

"Gold?" She said at the site of him.

"Hey Yellow. Look, I'm going to skip the greetings and the small talk and get right down to business," Of all the Dex Holders, wondering what they should do for Yellow's birthday, Gold was the only one who got tired of waiting and wondering and asked up front; "What do you want for your birthday?"

"Oh that? It's okay Gold; I don't need you to get me anything." She said.

"Yeah okay, but what do you _want_?" Gold egged on.

Yellow smiled, she put a hand on his shoulder and gently said, "Nothing."

Just looking at her, Gold had no choice to believe her, how could anyone lie with that expression?

"I appreciate your asking, I really do, but I don't need you to get me anything."

Gold sighed silently, "Well okay, if you're sure. But don't expect me to get you anything then." He said, hoping to get her to at least drop a hint.

To no avail, "That's okay." She had the most happy, go-lucky expression.

"Well okay then, see ya." Gold said.

"Bye." Yellow said back happily and full of energy.

Yellow wasn't letting up, and Gold was back to square one like everybody else.

* * *

Red laid on his bed sleepily. He'd spent the whole day doing the same old thing. Now, at the point of throwing his hands up in the air and saying "screw it I don't care", he just wanted to lay back in his white T-shirt and black plaid pajama pants and relax the rest of the day away. That's when his Pokégear phone rang. He reached over lazily for it and pushed the call button.

"Hello?" He said groggily.

"Hi Red." Came an energetic voice from the other end.

"Hi Blue." He replied.

Their voices and attitudes seemed to be perfect opposites.

"So anyways, Red, you know how we didn't come up with anything for Yellow's birthday?"

"Yeah, how could I forget? And you couldn't have picked a better time to call me? It's almost midnight." He said limply turning his head to the digital clock on his nightstand.

"Sorry. But just tell me real quick." She caught Red's attention, "What do you think of this?"

* * *

March Third

Yellow slept relaxantly and gingerly from ten pm to eight thirty am or somewhere around there. She went to bed at ten but didn't fall asleep until later. But somewhere around there in the morning, Yellow was awakened, almost rudely, by the sound of a car horn. When it stopped, Yellow forced herself to get up and to look out the window. Sure enough, she saw Blue's car. Without changing out of her light blue pajamas, she went outside and up to the car to see what the fuss was about.

"Blue?" She said whipping her eyes, "What are you doing here?"

"Well it _is_ your birthday isn't it?" She replied

"Oh that?"

"You were expecting a party clown? Go on get dressed." She said.

"What for?" Yellow asked.

"Well because, I'm gonna take you for a day out for your birthday." Blue informed.

"Blue, I'm flattered, really, but you don't have to do that." Yellow replied.

"Oh yeah? Too bad." Blue suddenly had a tone that told Yellow exactly what Blue said next; "Get dressed, have breakfast, brush your teeth, do whatever, because I've got this whole day planned out and you're gonna play along whether you like it or not, because I _know_ you will."

"…O-kay." Yellow said in a mildly stunned tone of voice while Blue smiled triumphantly.

* * *

Yellow emerged some time later in her normal black shirt, grayish jean pants, purple boots and yellow tunic. She had decided to leave her hat at home for today, figuring it'd be out of the way for whatever Blue had planned. She yawned while hurrying up to the car. Inside Blue was playing a Nintendo DS.

"What took ya so long?" Blue said jokingly as Yellow shut her car door.

"So, where are you taking me?" Yellow asked.

"Well first, shopping." She replied.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Blue thank you but I don't really need anything."

"Well, how about we get there and we'll see what little trinkets you want then." Blue insisted.

Yellow knew there was no stopping her now.

* * *

They'd made it to a clothing store in Viridian Blue had pre-visited to make sure it was good. Blue was looking at one of the shelves, constantly having to remind herself that she was here for Yellow's sake and that she was looking for things _Yellow_ would want.

"Really Blue, you don't have to do this. I'm happy with what I have." Yellow insisted.

"Oh come on," Blue urged, "there has to be something you see here that you would at least enjoy having."

Yellow meekly nodded her head "no".

Much to her surprise, Blue smiled devilishly, "Okay, fine then, I'll pick out stuff for you and you can just try it on and we'll go from there."

"What? Blue, this is really nice of you and all, but you shouldn't waste your money on me." Yellow insisted.

"We don't have to buy."

"I know Blue but, I don't wanna be a burden, I-" She was stopped by Blue putting her finger over Yellow's lips.

"Just please me for a minute. M'kay?"

Yellow blushed, "O-kay." She said in the same mildly stunned way as before.

She felt a little nervous, she wasn't sure what Blue was going to get or what she'd have to wear before the day was over. Even so, what choice did she have other than to go along with what Blue was doing at the risk of embarrassing herself?

* * *

Blue had asked Yellow to wait in the changing room while she picked out some things for her to try on. All in all, Blue made Yellow try on a total of five outfits, which was a lot less than she'd expected. Then again, she did more or less practically beg Blue not to make her wear any swimwear. Blue could at least understand that much, after all, Yellow could be a little shy under the right circumstances. One of the outfits was a white dress that Blue admitted was modeled after a wedding dress, Yellow felt very embarrassed about that but agreed to try it on anyway. It started just barely above the chest with white forearm length gloves a hair bow that went on the starting point of her ponytail that had a fabric that went down her back to the very top of her legs.

Another one was an orange over body skirt that reached halfway to her knees with a grayish brown, leather jacket. Another was black short-shorts, a long red shirt that was so long it mostly eclipsed and covered the shorts, and long, thigh-high socks that started white and then were striped black and white from the ankles up. And yet another one was a pair of pajamas, not unlike the ones she wore this morning, but they were a bit darker. The next one was very different.

In the stall Yellow, couldn't believe her eyes when she saw it, "Seriously?"

"Yeah come on, you'll look good in it."

Yellow couldn't help but giggle at the irony. A few seconds later, she slipped it on and came out. It was an exact replica of Blue's outfit. The same skirt, the same tank top, socks, shoes, hat, and even the same wristbands.

"Ooh, sexy." Blue teased making Yellow blush while holding her hand up behind her head, "Gee, where have I seen that before?" A few seconds passed before Blue asked; "How do you feel?"

Yellow, still smiling, grabbed the door handle and shut it bashfully.

"Oh come on Yellow." She'd asked her how she felt after she'd come out with every outfit she'd worn, "Come on, if you don't like 'em just say so."

"It's not that, it's just, I don't know." She said from behind the stall door.

"It's not a hard question Yellow, I'm asking how you feel about the outfits not one of the boys or something." Blue urged.

"I don't know, different."

"Different how?"

"I don't know just different. Like, not better but not worse, just different."

"Fair enough." Blue gave in and just let Yellow be, "You sure that last one doesn't make you feel sexy?"

Yellow giggled, "Is this the place where you got yours?" She asked.

"No, mine was a gift remember?"

"Oh yeah."

"Okay, hurry up in there, there's still a couple places I need to take you today." Blue said hurrying her.

"Like where?" Yellow asked.

"You'll see." Finished Blue.

* * *

"So you asked who for a favor?" Yellow said quizzically.

"Just wait, he's got all of his equipment set up at Red's place." Blue said in response.

"Equipment for what?"

"Just wait and see."

"Okay… So is Red home?"

"I don't know honey I'll have to check." Blue said just before parking outside of where Red's house, "Okay, come on."

"But what-"

"Just role with me here." Blue interrupted.

They hurried into the house. Inside, Yellow saw there was a curtain set up along with a mirror, some measuring tape, and multiple threads next to sewing equipment.

"Hello!" Blue hollered.

"I'm coming I'm coming." Someone said hurriedly.

"Is that who I think it is?" Yellow asked.

The person emerged from beyond a nearby wall, "If who you think it is is me, then yes."

"Ruby was it?" Yellow asked, "Sorry, I can be pretty bad with names sometimes."

"No it's alright, besides, you guessed my name exactly right so it works."

"Oh, okay good." Yellow said, relieved.

"So d'ya tell her or do you want me to?" Ruby asked Blue.

"No I can tell her." Blue replied.

"What?" Yellow said curiously.

"Well, you know how I just took you to try on all those clothes?"

"Mmhm." Yellow nodded almost cautiously.

"Well we're going to do something like that." Blue continued, walking up behind Yellow and putting her hands on Yellow's shoulders, gently guiding her towards Ruby, "We're going to _make_ you an outfit."

"Oh." Yellow said, "So do I have to tell him my size and stuff?"

Blue stopped her just by the curtain, "Not exactly."

"Then how's he?" Yellow stopped herself short and took another glance at the measuring tape next to Ruby who'd taken a seat and was filing his nails of all things to do; on a bench he had set up, "No." She said and then turned around, "Blue I don't know if I can do that."

"Oh relax." Blue encouraged her, sounding relaxed herself, "You'll be fine."

"But-"

"Oh just get in there." Blue said shoving Yellow past the curtain then closing it fast behind her.

"But Blue!"

"Chillax, it's not that bad. It's like changing in a locker room; it's only bad the first time." Blue said, Yellow remained silent for a few seconds, "Of course if he starts asking you to take your clothes off just holler." She teased.

"Blue!" Yellow whined, her face furiously glowing red.

She nervously turned her head to Ruby, who held his hands up surrenderingly in a way that said "don't blame me", "Hey look, we don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"Yes we do." Blue interrupted, "Yellow I know you're upset now but I'm only doing this because I love you. You'll thank me when it's over."

Yellow didn't say anything. There was no point in arguing with her. Ruby looked at Yellow, waiting for some sort of response. She sighed and lifted her head acknowledgingly.

"Okay, then I'm just gonna have you stand in the middle of the rug there." He said, standing up and putting down the nail file.

Yellow obeyed. Ruby picked up the measuring tape and pulled it out a little ways. Yellow silently whined to herself.

* * *

"Okay." Ruby whispered silently to himself, measuring Yellow's height, having removed her boots for her by habit and having her stand on the end of the tape to measure her from head to toe, "Okay, hold your arms out for me." He requested.

She did and Ruby measured the length from one wrist to the other. Ruby then moved his arms out in front of Yellow and wrapped the tape around her chest area, measuring her all around. Yellow groaned in discomfort.

"Hey listen, I can still stop if you want me to." He offered again, retracting the tape.

"No, it's okay, besides, Blue's never gonna let me walk away from this so let's just get it over with." Yellow responded.

"You're a braver member of the species than I." Ruby complimented, pulling the measuring tape back out.

* * *

After a few hours of sewing, Ruby had finished the outfit and held Yellow by her shoulders in front of the mirror after she put it on, "So, how do you like it?" He asked.

"Um… Well it sure is comfy." She said.

"Oh come on; just admit you look nice in it." Ruby urged.

"Oh come on, stop." Yellow said bashfully.

"No I mean it. It's just delicious on you." He continued.

"Ohhh." Yellow mumbled, smiling wide and holding her hands to her face in bashfulness.

It appeared to be a pink kimono with "flowery", puffy edges around it; the sash that kept it in place was around the stomach just below the chest with a yellow, flower shaped piece sewn onto it. But it was actually a shirt, everything was sewn on, and the kimono-shirt wasn't actually designed to open. To remove it the wearer was to pull it off over their head. In her hair were a couple of ribbons sewn together with pre-sewn, pink flower pieces. It stretched to about knee length and beneath it were normal blue jean pants that she wore over her purple boots. The pants seemed a little tight on the outside but actually sat comfortably on her following her size perfectly. And just for good measure, Ruby went ahead and did her hair while he was at it, making sit neatly on her head.

"Go on, go show Blue." He urged.

"Okay." She agreed, but before she took off, she reached up and hugged him, "Thanks."

"Ah, I didn't really do anything." He said.

Yellow looked at him happily and walked past the curtain, "Hey Blue." She said meekly.

"Oh hey, see what'd I tell ya?" Blue said, Yellow lifted her hand behind her head and rubbed it bashfully, "Oh come on, don't tell me you don't love that one." She urged.

Yellow gave up, "You're right I do."

"Good." Blue finished the conversation, "Now come on, there're people who want to see you."

Yellow looked at Blue curiously, "Who?"

"You'll see. Just hurry, we're running out of time." She rushed.

"Hang on, what about the outfit I wore in here?"

"Grab it real quick and put it in the car."

"Uh, okay." Yellow agreed, rushing off to grab her shirt, pants and tunic.

* * *

"Can I open my eyes now?" Yellow asked Blue who had her hands over said eyes for good measure.

"Not yet hang on. Keep them closed until I say so." She replied.

"Okay Blue." She agreed.

Blue carefully removed her hands from Yellow's eyes and looked at her friend's face to make sure she kept them closed. Then with a devilish smile, she moved her mouth right next to Yellow's ear and inhaled lightly like she was about to whisper, and then; "Boo!" She yelled as loud as she could.

Yellow yelped, Blue had scared her into opening her eyes.

And then she saw, Red, Green, Gold, Silver and Crystal all chant "Surprise!"

"Oh." Yellow said silently, "Oh wow." She saw, among a few relatively small presents, a large, chocolate cake and a few party favors that been used to keep everybody entertained, so they must've been here for at least a little while. She recognized the building's inside, she was in the Viridian Gym, "Well. You guys." She started bashfully, "You really didn't have to do _this_."

"Yeah but we wanted to." Said Gold.

Yellow smiled. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been in this situation.

"Oh just come on and blow out the candles already." Crystal said invitingly, grabbing Yellow's hand and pulling her toward them.

Yellow from that point to where everyone, even the usually quiet Green, urged her to hurry and blow out the candles, and after they'd clapped for her after blowing them out, she couldn't do anything but smile. If nothing else, she felt grateful that she knew such people. People who not only would do something like this, but people who understood her enough to know just what she needed to enjoy it.

* * *

After the party and after everyone gave their goodbyes, Blue took Yellow home, helping her bring in the presents, what was left of the cake and her other outfit.

"Well." Blue started, "I should be getting home. My parents are probably worried."

"You haven't been gone _that_ long have you?" Yellow asked.

"Well no, but, what with the kidnapping and all." Blue replied, "So I'll be seein' ya." She said sweetly before turning to the door.

"Wait." Yellow called before she could leave walking to where she was.

"What?" Blue asked.

Yellow, with a wide smile gave Blue a sisterly hug, "Thanks for today." She said.

"Aw, no problem kiddo." Blue replied hugging her back, after the four second hug Blue reached for the door again, "See ya."

"Bye." Was the last thing Yellow said to Blue that day.

On her way upstairs, Yellow passed a mirror hanging on her wall. Yellow had to stop herself to look at her reflection. She smiled. She thought she looked nice with the hair ribbons in. She looked down at the little outfit Ruby had sewn together for her. She really _did_ look good. She felt… feminine… Not that she didn't before, but still. Wow. Inside her room, Yellow saw five, nicely decorated boxes that she hadn't seen at the party. There was a note on the orange box with a silver lid and a champagne ribbon.

It read:

"Hey Yellow. It's Blue. Remember back at the clothes store, I reminded you that my outfit was a gift from Silver…So was yours."

"Wait, wha?" She said silently to herself before reading on.

"Yeah okay, I have a confession to make. They're all gifts. The wedding-style dress is from Red, the skirt and jacket are from Green, the long shirt and socks with the short-shorts are from Gold, big surprise there, and the outfit that copies my outfit, like I said, is from Silver, I thought it would be ironic. And the PJ's are from Crystal. I had a bit of a helping hand with 'em all but essentially, that's who they're from. Just thought I'd tease you with what embarrassing things I _might_ have gotten at the store and _might_ have made you wear. So anyway there they are, and I got them here while you were having your measurements done. Haha, you didn't have to do them after all, but aren't you glad you did? You know who it is but love anyways-Blue."

Yellow had to read it twice before she smiled. Blue was a very tricky person like that.

* * *

Yellow had finished the task of putting away all the new gifts she'd received. She was sitting on her bed with the TV on petting Ratty and Chuchu. She loved all of her Pokémon equally like they were her children but Ratty and Chuchu impiticular were her "babies". They were both especially affectionate today. They probably thought her new kimono-shirt was soft, because, well, it was.

"Yeah." Yellow said to herself, "Yeah, it's been a really happy birthday."

* * *

March Fourth

"Yellow!" Blue called right outside her friend's bedroom door, "Come on Yellow we're gonna be late." She said knocking on the door again.

"Just a second!" Yellow replied, soon she emerged from the door wearing none other than the copycat of Blue's outfit, "Oh crud." She said, "Well one of us is going to have to change."

Blue looked at Yellow for a minute. Then she started to laugh. Well, it was kind of a funny joke. Soon both of them were laughing.

"Come on," Blue said, "let's get outta here." She finished with and arm around Yellow.

Yellow thought to herself; "Well hey; I had a terrific time yesterday, who says I can't have another one today?"

Little did she know, that was basically the principle Blue lived by.

* * *

So, that's that. Again, happy birthday Yellow! Hope you had a wonderful time, lol. I remember having an idea for this and jotting it down in four paragraphs on paper as fast as I could and putting it all alone in it's own folder to keep it from getting ruined. It was a V.I.P Very Important Paper *crickets* Okay, I deserve that but that's what it was.

And on a parting note. Yeah, I based the title on that of a Superman comic/Justice League episode "For the Man who has Everything". Okay, bu-bye, have a beautiful time. And don't worry, to make up for the late All That's Visible chapter, March is going to be Super-Special-Awesome for us.


	3. Crystal's Stress

Okay guys, I apologize that there were no April updates besides this one and that this one is incomplete. I may upload a part two or just edit this document. Hopefully things will pick up by May but I've been planning to work on Joe's "Week" series scripts more extensively that month.

I don't have any other April updates though the updates are still monthly and Amber is bi-monthly but just so you're all aware. I have a good reason. On April 12th, roughly around 10:45 p.m. my grandmother, who'd been suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia passed away after half a year of being tortured by her own mind. I'll try to get back on track but this sort of thing takes time. Enjoy the story as it is and I'll update it later.

Of all the updates this one was the most important. C'mon Crys, you didn't really think I'd miss your birthday did you? ^_^

**UPDATE:** Okay, so what I planned to do was resume this story collection again on Crystal's _next_ birthday. But my computer died and, well, drama. So it's a day late, technically that would make this a dead fic but now we can consider it revived. A lot's been going on and I've had time to get back on my feet, so whether you were on time or a little late like I was, let's all wish Crystal a happy birthday. And heck, let's make it relevant and wish everyone who was born in May, assuming that we wouldn't hate these people if we knew them, a happy birthday. And let's hope everyone born in April had a great birthday too, again, assuming we wouldn't hate them.  
_

It was news to no one at this point that Crystal was a busy worker. Her usual quota had her working so hard that not even her employer Prof. Oak could keep up. But recently the standards she set for herself had gotten high for just about anyone. If she wasn't capturing or performing some laboratory related task, she was training, or so it seemed. She would do this for hours, every day.

The only problem was that just like everybody else, even she wasn't physically capable of meeting her standards. Of course that has yet to have stopped her from trying. Her free time seemed to be getting thinner and thinner. Even when Prof. Oak himself confirmed to her friends, the other Dex Holders, that he'd let Crystal have the entire day or even week off, she would still say she was too busy and had too much to do. It was hard to keep track of what she was doing, or where or why she was doing it.

Crystal had two main sides to her personality. Her serious side and her normal side. Her serious side didn't have to be seen as serious, it was just that she was very devoted to what she was doing. When contemplating her "serious" side, many people, particularly those that don't know Crystal well, skim over the fact that Crystal finds what she's doing fun. She had no more of a passion for capturing than Red did for battling, or Ruby for contests, a law maker for justice, a warrior for combat. Problems of course, arise when that passion is taken to such an extreme that it isn't fun anymore.

Crystal seems to have fallen victim to this recently. Her stress levels are so high that she can't see that she isn't having fun anymore. She gets stressed, frustrated, angry, like every failure or miscalculation is mocking her. It's a lot like getting mad while playing a game; you completely forget that the game isn't fun anymore. The obvious solution is to take a break and have a cool off period so that the fun may once again be sought and attained. Crystal of course is also suffering from the fact that for every time she's missed a capture opportunity or the trail of a Pokémon, usually of the legendary sort, has gone cold she becomes more determined and can't stop. For like many who refuse to have a cool down period, she wants to avoid the feeling of defeat she would receive in doing so.

Crystal was in the living room of hers and her mother's house. She hadn't actually been there for a long time and it was very different from the way she remembered it. Due in no small part to her mother's tendency to change her surroundings. Of course it didn't really matter since her mother, being the free spirit wanderer that she is, was basically never around. She was seated uncomfortably in the couch, before her was a table and on the table, the couch, nearby chair and all over the floor, papers, Poké Balls, and various other belongings like mugs, a digital stop watch and a white Nintendo DSi XL were scattered around and the entire area was difficult to walk through. Yet Crystal knew exactly where everything was and wanted to keep it that way.

She was only getting winks of sleep. The feeling that sleep deprivation was giving her wasn't new but she hadn't come to invite it anymore than before regardless. The roots of her hair, while dry somehow felt wet and damp, prompting her to run her hand through her hair several times as if trying to feel what made it wet but it never actually was. Her skin, while it looked otherwise normal, felt saggy and strange, like their were multiple layers of skin that she could feel, or as if something was peeling off of it. Her eyes felt heavy, her muscles worn and her bones almost brittle. She had bags under her eyes, thick ones and it almost appeared as though she had black eyes, she was very weary and it took extra amounts of energy to move and extra brain effort to perform even simple tasks.

Her doorbell rang. She didn't get up; she was in the middle of writing down a string of attacks for a capture strategy that she'd been trying to pull off for a while and was going to get the door in a minute. She had to stop to try and keep herself awake and double check everything she was writing; all the while her doorbell would ring every so often. She finished quickly; she was rereading it for errors in strategy, execution, or even spelling being the perfectionist she was. Then, all her concentration was broken as, annoyingly enough; the person at the door rang the doorbell repeatedly in quick succession. Whoever it was at the door, they knew she was in there.

She slammed her pencil down on the table and stood up. She marched up a small flight of five stairs and over to her front door, even stomping on her way over.

She opened the inside door and kicked the second windowed door as it flung open over her porch, "WHAT!" She yelled in a fit of rage before bothering to see who she was yelling at.

And as coincidence would have it that person, or rather those people, were Blue and Yellow.

"Mm temper temper Crys." Blue just about hummed saying that sentence.

Crystal sighed and collected herself, "Blue, that was the single most annoying thing you have ever done. Please don't do it anymore, okay?" Crystal said in a very annoyed tone.

"Okey-doke." Blue said relaxantly.

"Crystal, are you alright?" Yellow asked.

"Yeah sure never better why?" She replied.

"Well, it's just you're always gone, and right now you look like a mess, are you really okay?" Yellow continued.

"I'm fine." She insisted, she had work to get back to and tried to wrap this up, "Okay, have a nice night." She said.

Technically it was around seven or eight and it was actually nearing dusk, the sky was painted orange by the setting sun and similar, redish or even magenta colors followed. As Crystal tried to shut her door, the ever assertive Blue placed her hand on the door.

"Hold on there, you heard Yellow everyone hardly sees you anymore, you could at least let us come in." She said.

"I'm kind of busy." Crystal said back.

"Well-" Yellow started, like she preferred Blue's idea but didn't want to bug Crystal.

"And?" Blue quickly interrupted.

Crystal sighed again, "Fine. Come in." She said exhaustively, like she was trying to avoid sounding annoyed or rude. She turned and walked back inside and Blue and Yellow followed, "If you're hungry help yourself to the fridge, you can do pretty much whatever you want but don't touch anything in the living room, I know where everything is and I'd like to keep it that way." With the one ground rule set she groggily walked back to her living room and plopped down on the couch.

Blue leaned over the couch, catching Crystal's attention, "Hey Crys?"

"Yeah."

"How long have you been at this?" Yellow asked, accidentally interrupting Blue.

Blue opened her mouth to talk but paused, "…Yeah actually I was gonna ask that."

Crystal turned away, facing forward, and rubbed her temples, sighing again, rather annoyed sounding.

"Grouchy?" Blue asked.

"Of course I'm grouchy, if you really must know I've been at this for four days straight." Crystal replied and quickly went back to what she was writing before.

"You must be really stressed out." Yellow said.

"It's more exhaustion than anything. When I say four days straight I mean it."

"You haven't been asleep for four days?" Yellow said in a concerned, even alarmed tone.

To Crystal it was rather ear piercing and annoying due to tiredness making her irritable.

"I don't know about you but I gathered that when I saw all the coffee cups laying around." Blue said.

"It wasn't really caffeine so much as it was insomnia. I couldn't stop thinking about a failed capture attempt and then I couldn't stop thinking about a capture strategy I've been working on and I had to get up and do the math for it, then I couldn't stop thinking about my Poké Ball stock, then I needed coffee to stay awake and I couldn't stop thinking about things in my head that needed written down. And then I couldn't stop thinking about coffee." Crystal explained.

"Should you even be drinking coffee? Is that healthy at your age?" Blue asked.

"It doesn't matter. Crystal, you need to rest." Yellow said very worriedly.

"I'm almost done." She insisted, still writing very quickly.

"Actually I have to agree with Yellow, have you even fed your Pokémon in the four days you haven't slept?" Blue asked.

"Their food bowls were full, yes." Crystal replied, finishing what she was doing and laying her pencil back down.

"Okay." Blue said skeptically, "So where are they?" She all but challenged Crystal.

"Well don't move your foot because you're standing right next to Xatee's Poké Ball."

Blue looked down to see the little bird Pokémon asleep in its Poké Ball.

"You just left their Poké Balls lying around on the floor?" Yellow exclaimed in concern for the poor creatures.

"I-I know where they all are." Crystal began before nearly falling over on the table.

"We should get all the Pokémon on the table." Blue said, holding the bird Pokémon's Poké Ball in her hand.

"Right." Yellow agreed and walked from where she was around the couch to where Crystal was.

"I thought I told you not to touch anything." Crystal said tiredly and even sickly while holding her hand to her head.

Yellow grabbed Crystal by the arm and lifted her up, "We know Crystal, come on."

"Where're your other Pokémon?" Blue asked.

"Well Mega's already on the table, Bonee is on the couch by where I was sitting, Parasee's on the shelf by the stairs and," She stopped to yawn.

"Where's your Hitmonchan?" Yellow asked.

"Oh you didn't see him? He's out of his Poké Ball, he's in the kitchen." Crystal said, walking over to her fire place, "And Arckee's." She started, but she stopped and stared before picking up an empty Poké Ball, "Well this is his Poké Ball."

"Where is he though?" Yellow asked another question.

"I…" Crystal began, very startled from finding the Poké Ball empty and pausing, "I don't know." She said worriedly.

"Well where did you last have 'im?" Blue asked.

"I don't know." She replied.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Blue said back, Yellow wasted no time and started looking around for any sign of the dog Pokémon, he wouldn't be hard to find, he was bigger than most horses.

"I-I don't even remember letting him out of his Poké Ball." Crystal said worriedly.

"Well are you sure that's his Poké Ball?" Blue asked.

In response to her question, Crystal moved the Poké Ball to its bottom side, showing the word "Arckee" written on it in erasable black marker, "Sometimes I write the names of the Pokémon on the bottom so I can keep track of them." All of her worry came back to her tenfold, "Oh my gosh, what if something happened to him?" She said in an almost panicked tone.

"Don't worry." Yellow piped up. She was standing by the door in that room, glass but with a wooden frame, peeking through the blinds that were attached to it, "I see him, he's in your backyard, sleeping like a baby."

Crystal took a deep sigh of relief before speaking any further, "Well what-what's he doing back there?"

"Crystal, don't you think you should be resting? I mean your birthday is tomorrow." Yellow said.

"It is?" Crystal said.

"Yeah, Prof. Oak gave you all of April off just to be able to celebrate it." Yellow continued.

"Wait, he did?"

"Okay Crys, you're way too sleep deprived. Maybe you'd be recalling these things better if you were able to sleep on it." Blue suggested, guiding her to the nearby chair.

Yellow walked back over, "What should we do?"

"Well she's too out of it to think straight, we should convince her to go to sleep." Blue replied.

"I'm right here, okay? Stop talking about me like I'm plastered." Crystal said, finally just letting herself be annoyed.

"Okay, but it's still a good idea for you to get some sleep." Yellow said.

"Yeah sure." Crystal started, "But first I have to-" She began to get up but Blue held her hand in front of her to stop her.

"No. No 'but first I have to's, no 'before that I gotta's, no 'if I don't do it now I won't remember's, you're going to bed." She insisted, lightly pushing her to guide her back down into the chair.

"Okay, fine." Crystal said, she was too tired to argue.

Yellow took a blanket from the top of the couch and laid it on Crystal as gently as possible. If only from sheer exhaustion, Crystal fell asleep right there before she could make a comment about anything else.

"So, how do you wanna go about this?" Blue asked.

"Well, she'll probably be asleep for a while. Maybe we should just leave the paper here." Yellow suggested.

"Yeah, I don't think we'll get a chance to actually talk to her about this."

"I'm not one-hundred percent though. I mean we can't just leave her here can we?"

"Don't sweat it; she said her Hitmonchan was in the kitchen we'll just talk to him real quick. Assuming Crystal got that right and wasn't all messed up because of being awake for so long." Blue finished.

She then walked past Yellow heading to the kitchen to see if the aforementioned Hitmonchan was really there. Yellow took one last look at Crystal and smiled. Even in this circumstance it was nice to see her good friend again.

She pat Crystal on the head, "Happy birthday Crystal." She said happily.

"Yellow." Blue called.

"Coming." Yellow said, she then followed after Blue.  
_

Crystal woke up some time later. It was dark out, she saw Arckee now in his Poké Ball by her other Pokémon and Hitmonee asleep on the neighboring couch. She'd assumed Blue and Yellow left and that they'd left Hitmonee to watch over her. She picked up the empty Poké Ball that said "Hitmonee" on the bottom and returned the sleeping creature. She placed the Poké Ball on the table and left the room.

She had no idea what time it was, and went to the kitchen to look at the digital clock attached to the stove. 3:38 a.m. it read. She decided she'd take her six Pokémon up to her room with her and go back to sleep. But as she turned she noticed a paper that was horizontally folded three times on the counter. Of all the paper she'd been using, she didn't remember bringing any of it into the kitchen.

Perhaps Blue and Yellow left it. Or maybe she just didn't remember bringing it in. Then again, after her nap she remembered a lot more. She remembered letting Arckee out of his Poké Ball to work out in the back yard. She walked over to the paper and opened it up. She actually found multiple papers were stapled together, and she was more surprised by what she saw than she thought she'd be.  
_

April 29th, last year;

Crystal held her Pokégear to her right ear. It'd been ringing for nearly a minute. She felt a somewhat sad feeling in the pit of her stomach; she was hoping it'd be answered. She even felt a jolt of brief happiness when she heard her mother's enthusiastic voice on the other end, only to be disappointed to hear it say "Hi I'm not here right now, please leave whatever you need to say after the beep" followed by the high-pitched beep in question. Her mother's ditziness showing through by having a voice mail opening that forgot to even mention who the caller had reached.

Still, it's not like Crystal didn't know who it was, "…Mom, I." She stopped; she wasn't sure what to say.

She hung up and dropped the Pokégear, it was held by a cord that went around her neck. She had been hiking for a while. She was expected somewhere tomorrow for her birthday. But before then, Crystal stopped to try and reach her mom. She hoped that she would at least get a call or a message from her mother by tomorrow like she usually did. Then again, she never used to be on the road this much, up until she started working with Professor Oak, she had always been easy to find. However it may've been, Crystal was just hoping to hear her mother's legit voice.  
_

It was a letter with written instructions of where and when to go stapled to a small map printed on plain white, printer paper.

"They're planning a party." Crystal mumbled, "Of course."

It wasn't a very original idea, it didn't seem like they were even trying to surprise her. Still if nothing immediately came to her attention before then, it seemed like it would be fun to go and do whatever it is they had planned. She wouldn't want them to go through all the trouble for nothing. Something felt off though. She couldn't immediately recognize the feeling but there seemed to be an air of envy around it. Like there wasn't any point to it. Well even so, her friends had gone to all the trouble to arrange something for her; it wasn't like she was going to ignore it.

She went back up to her room and laid her hat and jacket and such where she usually left them. She left her wristbands that held her Poké Balls on the nightstand next to her bed. Since she'd already had a pretty long nap as it was it was hard to get to sleep any further that night. She felt a lack of energy though and even if she was awake, she didn't feel like doing anything other than laying down. She didn't actually get to sleep though until she heard birds chirping early in the morning.  
_

"Crystal, wake up." A womanly voice was urging her.

"Mm." Crystal groaned in refusal pulling the covers further up her face to her cheeks.

"Crystal. Wake up." The voice said more sternly.

Crystal got up slightly from the bed leaning on her back with a look of annoyance on her face, "I was up really late the other night and I want to sleep for a while before I get up, okay mom?" She laid back down quickly, pulling the covers back up over her. But when her sentence registered in her brain she bolted back up, "Mom!"

Sure enough, her mother was standing, bent over to be closer to her daughter at the side of the bed, "Hi Crystal."

Crystal went from surprise to beaming with excitement, "Mom!" She cried wrapping her arms around her mother's neck and pulling her into an embrace, a wide smile on her face the entire time. She pulled back briefly to look her mother in the eye, "Mom what're you doing here?"

"It's my house. I finally have a chance to sit down with my daughter on her birthday and I'm going to enjoy it." She explained.

Crystal kept smiling and hugged her mother once again.  
_

Crystal's mom was over the kitchen counter, cutting up some fruits, "So how've things been?"

"Tiresome." Crystal replied.

"You always were a hard working little Oak's assistant." She said, bringing over the plate of chopped fruit.

"Actually, he gave me the month off. Oh thank you." Crystal said as her mother put down the plate.

"Then what's been tiresome?"

"Well, I've spent some time at the Pokémon School and helped with the kids like I normally do, but mostly, I think I've just been going overboard on the whole "catching" thing."

"Are you having another breakdown where you lose your ability to capture?"

Crystal held her forearm up to the side of her head, weary of the slap she'd received last time, which may've just been a "get a hold of yourself slap" but Crystal always thought it was a little much, "No," She put her hand down after that, "quite the opposite in fact. I just haven't been able to stop. I was working non-stop for four days until some friends came over and forced me to take a break."

"Well that doesn't sound anything like you."

"I know. I just, haven't been able to help myself."

"Why do you think that is?"

Crystal paused for a moment, "I haven't really thought about it."

"Well try to, then you might be your old self again."

"Okay." Crystal agreed.

"Is there anything else on your mind you want to get out as long as we're here?" The older woman added.

"Well. The friends I mentioned are planning a party. And well…"

"What's the problem?"

Crystal looked at her mother with eyes that seemed to want to say something but couldn't.

"You're not sure you want to go now that I'm back?"

"Well… Yeah." Crystal replied, a little surprised, "That was my exact wording even, you beat me to it."

The older woman just smiled, "Hey, just because we've been away for a while doesn't mean I'm not mom." She said her happy sing song voice, "I know these things."

"I still have to go, I mean, they went through all this trouble, I can't just not show up, ya know?"

"Well don't think 'have to', think 'want to'. I'll be here tomorrow, we can do something then." Her mother encouraged.

"You could come with me, I don't think they'd mind." Crystal offered.

"Well your friends probably did this because they miss you. I wouldn't want to divide your attention. Besides I'm back for a while so if you want I could have you to myself for the whole week."

"I guess but." Crystal stopped herself.

"But today is your birthday."

Crystal looked down and was silent.

"How long is the party for?"

"They didn't say."

"Well you have to come home eventually." She said, "And when you do, we'll do something quick, I don't care if we have to stay up 'til midnight."

"That's not very healthy is it?" Crystal said with a smile.

"Well... Who cares." Her mother replied, honestly not having a better response, "So is there anything else I need to know about this party?"

"They left a paper, oh what'd I do with that." She said to herself, "Be right back." She finished before hurrying upstairs back to her room.

After a short while she returned with the papers and handed them to her mother who briefed them over, "Oh. Well I know where this is, I can drive you there right now."

"Drive?"  
_

Lights turned on in the garage and revealed what almost looked like an arcade. Dolls, neatly arranged floor tiles and rugs, a medium sized television among other trinkets and in the middle of the whole thing, a red convertible.

Crystal was astounded, "Wha? Where did all this come from?"

"You've never been in here before?" Crystal's mom asked.

"No, I always thought the garage was filled with storage stuff or somethi-is that an arcade machine?"

"Donkey Kong. See it's red, that means this is one of the machines that was converted to Donkey Kong from Radar Scope."

"Oh I didn't know that." Crystal paused.

"Well, lets get going." Her mother said ecstatically before walking over to the car.

"Mom why do you have a car?"

"Let's go!"

"No really, what do you need a car for?"

"Have you got everything?"

Crystal sighed, she looked herself over, her Pokémon were on her wristbands, she had her Pokédex and Pokégear, "Yeah I'm ready."

"Good, then I'll tell you on the way." Crystal just sighed and climbed into the car, "Buckle up hun." Her mother reminded her.

"Oh right."

It was a very different experience for her, she'd only ridden in car only once or twice in her life. With the human race having befriended Pokémon for more than at least 50 million years, people mostly used them or some form of public transit. Cars were little more than fashion statements. Well it didn't matter, Crystal wanted to take as much time as possible to talk to her mother.  
_

They arrived at the designated building, the Pokémon School that doubled as an orphanage the Crystal worked at.

"Here we are." Crystal's mom said, again in her happy, sing-song voice.

"Okay, thanks, so I'll walk home then?" Crystal asked, climbing out of the car rather than opening the door.

"If you change your mind just call." Crystal nodded and turned to leave, "And Crystal." Her mother stopped her, "I'm still mom, okay? If there's anything you need, just say the word."

Crystal paused, "Really?"

"Absolutely."

The expression on Crystal's face was one of both curiosity and skepticism, and after a second of consideration asked; "Who's my dad?"

Her mother turned her head without another word and hit the gas. The car let out a loud screech and left skid marks as it tore off down the street. Crystal slammed her eyes shut as the violent and sudden noise hurt her ears. She then stared blankly in front of her as she listened to the car heading down the street.

"Every time." Crystal mumbled.

"Hey Crys!" A voice hollered from behind.

Crystal turned to see Gold walking up behind her with his hand in the air, waving, "Hey Gold." She said, turning to walk towards him and waving back.

"Who was that? Friend of yours?" Gold asked with his hand to his chin.

Crystal looked annoyed, as if she could somehow sense where Gold would go with this, "Yeah that's my mom."

"That was your mom! Damn girl." Gold said in astonishment, he then went back to his previous look, "Teenage pregnancy I have no doubt."

"Don't even think about it." Crystal said darkly.

"Ease up super ser-oops."

Crystal looked confused, "What?"

"I promised the others I wouldn't call you any names. Being your birthday and all." Gold grabbed her arm, "Come on, I'm supposed to show you in."

"Okay."

"Yeah we couldn't really make it a surprise so we figured we'd just let you know up front that it was a party." Gold added as they neared the door, he opened and announced in a subtly ironic voice, "You'll never guess who just showed up."

Crystal was suddenly met with wave of greetings all at once. In total, Blue and Yellow were there, she'd assumed it from the other day, Earl and the children were there, again, she'd expect it, it was the building they lived in, there was also Silver, Emerald, Prof. Oak, Green, Red, Ruby and Sapphire. Some were obvious, like Emerald, some were appreciated but unexpected, like Prof. Oak. For the life of she didn't know why Red was there, maybe it was just to be polite since everyone else came. She couldn't help but smile. All her troubles seemed to go away at the moment. She was here, she really needed to unwind, she may as well enjoy herself.  
_

Three hours of their lives just seemed to zoom by. Crystal was happy she got to talk to everyone before it all ended, even Gold she would have to begrudgingly admit. It was mostly games, everyone who had a Wii had brought one for the occasion. She guessed that was why Red was there, though it got a little hectic because all the children wanted to play with her. Much to her surprise, the party was apparently Silver's idea originally and everything else went from that. Blue told her that and asked her not to bring it up to Silver because he would supposedly be embarrassed about it. She considered that it may have been a lie to try to convince her to talk Silver, for whatever reason. Crystal often wondered what went on in Blue's head. She always had a plan for something.

She was on her way home. Silver and Gold walked with her for a while until they came up to a turn where Gold needed to go and left, heading back to New Bark Town. Silver stayed with her for a while longer but eventually had to fly back to Viridian because of the time and left wishing her a happy birthday. Silver was a nice boy. But it was closing in on eleven o' clock she didn't have much of a birthday left. Now she was on her own, heading back to her house. She had a lot of fun but it slowly wore off and Crystal was once again looking forward to seeing her mother, assuming she hadn't done anything impulsive and left.

She had just come up on her house when a faint glowing sensation seemed to occur behind her. A bright light would glow on and off again. She turned to see what was causing it and her eyes burst open and her jaw dropped. A beautiful blue radiance emitted and she was taken aback but the sight she saw before her. A sight she once feared she'd never see again.

"Sui... Suicune?" She whispered in a breath-taken voice.

Sure enough, before her was the legendary Suicune. The world around her seemed to change. An aura or reflection of some sort causing an illusion that pasted itself over her surroundings. Everything appeared to be a grassy, forest area near a pond of water that Suicune seemed to be standing over. Crystal was absolutely amazed by all of this, but Suicune wasn't done yet. It pointed it's head towards the sky, as if signaling something. Crystal looked up. Brightly glowing stars seemed to spell out, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY CRYSTAL". She knew Suicune well enough to know this was an illusion, but she couldn't help the feeling of pure awe.

She looked at Suicune, who was now looking directly at her, "How... How could you have known?"

Suicune did nothing to answer. Crystal could barely believe all of this happened just now. Or at all for that matter. Suicune stood before her, doing nothing, as if waiting for something. She hesitantly reached her hand out. She didn't know what she wanted to accomplish in doing so but she just reached out to Suicune.

Once her hand was nearly at arms length Suicune stretched it's neck out as much as it would go and nudged Crystal's hand. They both took a few steps forward and without really thinking about it, Crystal was petting Suicune, petting Suicune. She brought up her other arm and held it under Suicune's chin, scratching his neck. She couldn't believe this. Suicune, a powerful legendary Pokémon was being submissive enough to let her pet him. Suicune turned his head in comfort and if only because she couldn't help herself, Crystal rested her head in Suicune's soft mane. This feeling, it was something she couldn't put into words if she spent the rest of her life trying to do so.

Suddenly, Suicune lifted his head up and straightened his legs. Standing 6'07 it still towered over Crystal, yet just a second ago, it had lowered itself enough for her to pet it. It dashed off as it liked to do. The illusion it had created disappearing and the image of the small street in Violet City.

Something came over Crystal, "Suicune wait!" She gave chase, of all places Suicune seemed to dash into her open garage, "Please wait!"

Once she got there though, Suicune was gone. All she saw was her mother, "Oh there you are." She said, "It's getting late, I was going to come looking for you in a minute."

"Did you see it!" Crystal asked frantically.

"See what?"

"But, it ran through here just now, i-"

"What?"

Crystal stopped and held her head down, staying silent, "...Nothing mom... I'm just happy." She brought her head back up, her eyes beginning to water, "I just ran into an old friend, that's all."

Her mother smiled and brought her arms up, hugging her child. In addition to going over her encounter with Suicune a hundred times in her head, Crystal couldn't help but think, what drove her to work herself half to death in the first place? While her friends' attempt to solve the problem helped a lot and made her very grateful to them, it was really when Suicune appeared and did what it did, that all of it went away. She had no idea why she was so worked up. Maybe she was afraid of never seeing Suicune again after that time two years ago. Maybe, not likely though. Crystal decided she wouldn't think too hard about it, it wasn't important and she promised herself she wouldn't let it happen again.

"So does that Donkey Kong machine still work?" She asked.  
_

"I'm on my 13th run, I'm so gonna beat your score." Crystal playfully boasted.

"You can try honey. But you will fail, they always do." Her mother returned with a high and mighty attitude in her voice standing a few steps behind her daughter, she turned around, looked at an Ultra Ball and started whispering, "So why the wait? You know she loves you to death." Silence, but she seemed to be communicating with what was in the ball, "I see, well if you insist. But that was still awful nice of you Suicune."

"You talking to me mom?"

"Oh no hun. Don't worry about it." She said and walked over.

"You know, in light of how things have been, Prof. Oak gave me another week and a half to myself."

"Oh goodie, then we'll have to think of things to do while we're both around."

Crystal smiled, she and her mother spent the rest of the night playing and talking, looking forward to the following week, and this same time next year.  
_

Well, there it is. I feel I broke one of my own rules with this. I don't normally like it when Crystal is portrayed as workaholic. She's normally able to freely do a crap-load of work without any frustration, and other people, including the great Prof. Oak, have trouble keeping up with how much progress she makes while she's not even trying. It's a lot of work but she's naturally able to handle it, and it's a healthy amount of work for _her_. Now think about how much work she does with no problem or concern and without realizing how much she wears out her employer, in fact in this story Prof. Oak probably gave her time off to give _himself_ a break, imagine her actually getting to the point where she's worked too hard and needs a break. Can you imagine what kind of hell that would be for a normal person?

If you've read "Alone in an Elevator, No One Needs to Know", you'll know what I'm talking about when I say I've given Crystal's mom a hard time. I don't really know what to think of her other than "Diet Lady Gaga", incidentally the fan nickname "Lady Gaga" for Crystal's mom was a rare stroke of creativity in the fanbase, considering they normally give us names like MangaQuest, but anyway. I went with a more positive interpretation of Crystal's mother in this story because I'm exploring that. I don't agree with the idea of slapping your crying child when they're begging you for help, but Crystal turned out just fine, and just think of how sweet Crystal is, her mom must be doing something right, and far be it from me to tell a fictional character how to raise their kids.

The red Donkey Kong cabinet story is true by the way. For those of you who remember "Amber the Florence Nightingale Effect", which seems to have disappeared on me(check my page for more info remember to vote if you want it rewritten), you'll remember that it was rife with pop culture references. Which, I would always find okay but I think I went way overboard. I'm still doing it but it's more fitting this time around, semi-Nintendo characters discussing a Nintendo game sounds cute and clever(to me anyway), it makes a lot less sense for them to talk about Two and a half Men. So I'm trying to make any further references be something that might be relevant to Dex Holders. And the part about the Wii comes from Generation 4 games, in which you can go into player character's rooms and they have Wii consoles. Before that they had Gamecubes, Super Nintendo's and in the case of Generation two, an NES, an SNES, a Nintendo 64 and even the frikin' Virtual Boy.

Also I don't think enough stories feature Crystal and Suicune enough. Suicune is way more important to Crystal's character than say, Gold.

Partly dedicated to the memory of Ida Lily-Belle Thompson. In the exact words of my dad, "We all wanted her to go for so long because of her suffering. But the second she was gone, we all wanted her back."


	4. Emerald's Precious Little Life

Okay, a few minutes late, as usual. But I have an exam to study for. Here's one for Emerald, and tomorrow, er... Today... With any luck. We'll see Blue's. This is my first time posting about Emerald, I hope I captured him well. Also today(er, yesterday) is my cousin's birthday too. The title of this chapter is a reference to Scott Pilgrim. Well enjoy, and stuff(another SP reference). Oh, and it didn't update, but I finished Crystal's story, go back and check that out if you haven't.  
_

May 31st

There was a boy. A very short boy, he wore large stilts with long black pants draping over them. His light green shirt was spiked at the bottom with two red arcs going upward around the collar and the number "10" printed on the back, and it had very long sleeves with small, jewel looking pyramids on the elbows. His actual arms didn't really reach the shirt's elbows, but under them he had mechanical extender hands that could extend beyond the limits of the sleeves. His eyebrows somehow grew off his face and on his forehead he had another large pyramid-shaped jewel on his head, but this was an actual jewel, the remnants of something called "the Green Orb". And his blond-brown hair, which he normally pointed upward in a crescent moon shape, was down, it was long and went past his shoulders. He was walking alone in a vacant grassy area. Or seemingly alone anyway.

"So yeah, that's that." He said. A floating creature of some sort beside him gave off a cry, as if asking him something, "Nah." He replied, "I got some trinkets from everybody but nothing big. It's the thought that counts right?" Another creature floating on his left side vocalized a Pokémon cry as well, "No it's fine. I knew today would be the only day I could visit so I got everything done beforehand. Besides, I'm just happy to see you guys again. Latios, Latias."  
_

May 29th at Prof. Oak's secondary place of work in Johto.

"So when are you leaving?" Crystal asked.

"The morning after tomorrow." Emerald replied.

"Well that's enough time, you can stick around and we'll celebrate if you want."

"I guess that's fine." He said.

Crystal noticed his tone and asked; "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine, why do you ask?"

"You seem so... apathetic." She replied.

"I must be bored." He said.

"Wanna play a game?"

"What kinda game?"

"Any kind. But I was thinking Wii?"

"We?"

"Wii." She said, lifting her arms up and waving her hands as if she were holding a Wii remote and nunchuck.

"Oh. Actually now that I've thought about it, why don't we battle?" Emerald suggested.

"We can do that." Crystal said with a smile.  
_

Emerald and Crystal had gone outside, just a few paces away from the building.

"I'll choose first and you can go ahead and choose one after." Crystal offered.

"Sounds good."

She thought over Emerald's team, she wanted to pick one that wouldn't have too much of a disadvantage against any of his Pokémon. His team stacked against hers pretty well type wise. In fact she could only use her grass Pokémon. That was fine, she just so happened to have two. And finally she decided.

"Parapyon!" She shouted, calling out her Parasect.

Parasect was an insect-like creature with a large red, yellow spotted mushroom on it's back that was bigger than the body of the creature. In fact the mushroom was a parasite that had grown so large that it drained the insect, it's pre-evolved form "Paras" and completely overtook it's body. The mushroom was now in control. Many Paras owners opted not to evolve them for this reason. Crystal met Parapyon as a Parasect in the wild.

Despite the frightening idea of a creature losing it's body to a giant mushroom parasite, Parapyon was actually very friendly. Giving Crystal pain killing spores upon their first meeting when Crystal had both of her arms broken. And the parasite itself wasn't inherently malicious. It had large pincers in the front, four other independent legs and completely white eyes. Despite it's overall frightfulness, it was a docile, well-behaved creature. And the mushroom was a fungus, growing naturally and living out it's natural life cycle, it couldn't stop itself from overtaking the body even if it wanted to.

Emerald smirked, "Perfect. Dusclops! Blizzard!" He called releasing his opposing Pokémon.

Out came a Pokémon that looked like a kind of ghost mummy. It had a roundish body, it was gray and looked as if it was covered in bandages. It had stumpy legs and hands without arms. One of it's most distinguishing features was a single red eye. It's body was said to be completely hollow but the theory was as of yet unconfirmed. It had a fearsome reputation of things such as stealing souls but under a trainer it was very tame and loyal to a fault. Emerald's particular Dusclops was every bit as loyal as any Pokémon and had a lonely nature, perhaps strengthening it's bond with him.

Upon release, Dusclops did as it was commanded and unleashed a small burst of snow around him, Crystal and their Pokémon. This effectively obscured the opponent's vision and did a lot of damage to Parapyon, being a grass-type that was vulnerable against an ice-type move. It also made it difficult to use moves like Spore, Sweet Scent or Sludge Bomb. In the face of this Crystal kept a level head. The attack cleared soon enough, as it was supposed to.

Crystal's Pokédex beeped and alerted her to something, "Parapyon's been burned." She lifted her head up, "I see. Dusclops' Will-O-Wisp."

"Will-O-Wisp" was a ghostly attack that released a dark flame to inflict a burn, it must've been used while they were blinded by the blizzard. "Now Fire Punch!" Emerald commanded.

The blow struck hard and did even more damage, as Parapyon was also a bug-type. Both but and grass-types were weak against fire, doing four times the normal damage of Fire Punch. Yet somehow, Parapyon still stood. In fact Dusclops fell on one knee.

"Wha? Dusclops, what happened?" Emerald shouted.

"It's Giga Drain. I've been using it this whole time." Crystal said, "Now Spore."

Parapyon released a small cloud of spores from the mushroom on it's back that engulfed Dusclops. The spores took affect and Dusclops was fast asleep.

"Nice one Crys, but I came prepared, Snore!" On that command, Dusclops released a powerful sound wave.

Crystal, who was in close proximity covered her ears, "Giga Drain!"

And with that, Dusclops was defeated, falling over, incapable of further battling. But Parapyon wasn't able to get enough energy out of the attack and the burn had gotten to it, it collapsed as well. Both trainers returned their defeated Pokémon.

"That was good." Crystal complimented.

"Thanks, you were pretty good too." Emerald returned.

They both reached for another Poké Ball, but before they could do anything, a long, sectioned pole of some sort touched their heads at a slanted angle. It had to be as even with his stilts Emerald was still very short compared to Crystal. Emerald turned and Crystal looked past him to see Gold. He was sitting on the ground and the pole was his billiard cue extended at a long range.

"I win." He said jokingly.

"Hey Gold!" Emerald yelled, excited to see him.

Crystal just sighed. She had a complicated relationship with Gold. Sometimes she was genuinely humored by his antics and sometimes they annoyed her endlessly. Gold had a way of bringing out the worst in her, but he was a nice boy, and she was on good enough terms with him to say he was a friend, and a valued one at that, so it's not like she hated him or anything. This time around she simply tolerated it.

"Hey Rald." He said standing up, "Heard you were leavin'." He added, walking over.

"I have some friends I wanna visit." Emerald replied.

"What kinda friends?" Gold asked, Crystal held her arms up and shrugged in response, telling him that Emerald wasn't saying, "Ah whatever."

"As long as I'm still here, we're kinda pretending today is my birthday." Emerald said.

"Okay." Gold put away his cue and lifted Emerald onto his back as he sometimes did, "But I'm not just gonna sit and watch a battle, let's do something!" He turned to Crystal, "You have video games right?" Emerald laughed and Crystal smiled.  
_

May 30th

"They found me." Emerald muttered in fear, "I don't know how or why but they found me."

"Hey Emerald where ya goin'?" Sapphire yelled.

She and Ruby were chasing behind him he was riding his Mantine, while Ruby used his Devon shoes to keep up with him, Sapphire running on all fours using her own, unnatural strength. Emerald tried to pull up but the two of them jumped on Mantine.

"Relax Rald, we're not gonna eat you or anything." Ruby said.

Emerald came to a stop and returned his Mantine from under them. Unprepared, Ruby and Sapphire landed on their backs, while Emerald landed on his stilts. It was only a three foot fall so it didn't hurt much but still. Emerald gave up trying to get away at this point. Ruby and Sapphire had taken an extreme liking to him. He wasn't sure why, quite frankly while he did sorta-kinda like them, he felt they got annoying real fast.

"Okay, I'll bite. What do you want?" Emerald asked calmly.

"We heard you were going somewhere tomorrow." Sapphire said.

"We just wanted to show you something." Ruby added.

Emerald raised an eyebrow.  
_

Later on Route 101

"We're almost there." Said Sapphire, "Now cover your eyes."

"Cover my eyes?" Emerald said in mixture of confusion and annoyance.

"Yeah I don't want you to know where my secret base is." Sapphire replied.

Ruby covered his eyes for him, "Well how come he gets to look?"

"I already know where it is." He replied.

All Emerald heard between his blind escort and annoyance was a bunch of rustling.

"Okay, now." Sapphire said.

"Tada!" Ruby said flamboyantly.

Emerald found himself inside of a heavily decorated secret base. There were fake plants, rugs, music tiles, cushions, posters, a small stage set up with dolls on it, a tent, a table with some chairs, and TV modeled on a Skitty. The whole place just screamed "Ruby was here". There were green balloons for the occasion and on the table there was... what was that?

"Come on, we got something for ya." Ruby said.

Emerald followed him up to the table, it was just as he feared.

"Happy Birthday!" Ruby and Sapphire yelled in unison.

There were presents, multicolored but a lot of them were green. And in the middle was a vanilla cake with green frosting. They really went all out with the green. Not that he could blame them with how much green he had already.

"You... Well you didn't have to do this." He said.

"Sure we did." Ruby said.

"Especially since you'll be elsewhere tomorrow." Sapphire added.

Emerald tried not to, he really tried his hardest but he couldn't force down a smile.

Sapphire spoke up again, "And I know just how to start this party and fire you up."

Emerald's smile turned smug, he knew were this was going.

They both turned to Ruby, and started chanting "Bat-tle, bat-tle, bat-tle, bat-tle, bat-tle, bat-tle, bat-tle."

"Alright, alright already." Ruby held his hands up to try and settle them, "There's a pretty much empty area through the tent there." He said, pointing behind him, "But don't think you can just have a battle and walk off." He added as they started walking, "Gold and Crys got you yesterday we get you today."

Emerald didn't say anything, he just kept smiling.  
_

Dusk of May 31st

Emerald threw a stick high into the air. Latios and Latias started flying swiftly past it, cutting it as the went by. The stick fell at Emerald's feet in several pieces. He just grabbed another one and prepared to throw it.

"I'm so glad you've made so many friends Emerald." Latias said telepathically.

Emerald threw the stick up, and the process repeated, "Yeah." He replied after the second stick was cut, "Things are lot different now huh?" It got slightly darker, Emerald turned his head to the sun, "I should be going." He turned his head back, "I wouldn't want to keep you, though I can't imagine you're very busy."

"It's no trouble." Said Latios through the same telekinesis, "If ever you need anything you can come and find us."

"Take care." Latias ended.

"You too guys." Emerald hollered.

And with that the two of them flew off. Emerald put his hands behind his head. He couldn't believe how well things had gone in the past year. All the friends he had, everything he got to do. He closed his eyes and smiled warmly. Could his life be more perfect?  
_

Okay, there's that. I couldn't really think of something to do with Emerald other than battle, so there's that. I tried to capture the strategized feel of the battles in PokéSupe so it's not just one Pokémon bashing another one. I don't think I did _as_ good a job but oh well. Ruby and Sapphire were a joy to write, they always are.

I like it but it feels incomplete. I may revisit it, but not now. It's late enough as it is. Well happy birthday Emerald, cousin, all... You... You can go ahead and leave now.


	5. He Forgot

It's late... Again... Much later. The last two, while I say "a day", I usually mean that as in, "the day passed". In reality, it was just a little past midnight. But the date does't usually say the exact time, so I just say, "a day". This one really is almost a day late. But this time it's not my fault. The website wouldn't upload the file. I tried but it didn't want to. And I tried exporting it to another document and it didn't work, so I know it was the website. Oh well, it's here now, and the second half of the story takes place the day after Blue's birthday, so it doesn't matter. Enjoy it, and stuff.  
_

June 1st, 10:38 pm.

Yellow was sitting by her tub in her bathroom scrubbing down her Omastar, Omsuke. Her tunic kept her from getting very wet, and she rolled the sleeves of her black shirt up to her upper arms. She took the time to bathe each of her Pokémon but Omsuke, being a water-type _and_ a genetically cloned prehistoric Pokémon with a weaker immune system to modern diseases, needed extra care and an almost sterile Poké Ball. Plus it made them happy. Yellow would've done it if only to see her Pokémon's cheerful faces.

There was a ringing that filled the air, "Hang on a second Omsuke." She dried off her arms with a nearby hand towel and dug a Pokégear out of her pocket, "Hello?" She answered.

"Hey Yellow? It's Red." Came a voice from the other line.

"Oh hey Red." Yellow replied cheerfully.

"Hey. Listen I wanted to talk to you about something." Red said, laying on the his bed.

"Sure go ahead." She said, holding her phone to her ear with her shoulder, while her hands went back to washing Omsuke's shell.

"Do you think you can tell me what was up with Blue? I mean earlier today she seemed really... somber."

"Whatta you mean?"

"Well..."  
_

Earlier that day

Blue was at Prof. Oak's lab speaking with the the Pokémon expert himself, "It's good to see you doing so well Blue."

"Thanks. I just thought, ya know, after seeing my parents so often these days, I really don't visit people I know as often as I should." Blue said.

"Nonsense, you've had the past five years to get to know all of us, eleven years is a long time to be away from your parents." The Professor replied.

"Yeah, you're right. But I wanted to see some people for my birthday."

"I understand." He assured her, "Though I wish I'd known you were stopping by, I might've gotten you something."

"Don't worry about it, I've been spoiled silly as of late." She replied.

"I would imagine. I'm afraid Green isn't here if you wanted to see him."

"Oh, I might pay him a visit." She then thought to herself; "Or you know, _not_." She continued; "I'm thinking I'll go visit Red before the day's over."

"Very well. Be safe." said as Blue turned to leave.

"Bye grandpa." Blue stopped and held her hand to her mouth.

She and Oak chuckled, "You haven't had a slip up like that in a long time." He said.

She had only called him "grandpa" one other time, when she was eleven or twelve, she wasn't sure. She was a bit more embarrassed about it then but it was funny now.

"Okay, let me try that again. Goodbye, _Professor_." She corrected herself.

"Goodbye Blue."

And with that she was out the door.  
_

A doorbell echoed through the small two storey house. It was a modest little place that sat to the far north of Pallet Town. It was very small. You could almost call it an apartment. Red was downstairs lounging at the moment and he was able to get the door shortly after the bell rang.

And who else should be there but; "Blue, hey."

"Hi Red." She greeted.

"How've you been?" Red asked, signaling her in.

Red and Blue were very close. They'd known each other for five years, Red even let Blue stay with him after the ninth Pokémon League. He also helped Blue rescue her parents, and after a traumatic encounter with Deoxys, she was the one who got him back on his feet. They were always looking out for each other. They talked for a while, normally Blue would've done a little flirting or teasing by now. For fun. But she wasn't in that kind of mood today, she thought she would just let Red be comfortable. But even so something felt wrong. Throughout their entire talk, Red seemed to be neglecting to mention something. Something kinda important. So Blue thought she'd give him a nudge in the right direction.

"Red."

"Yeah?"

"Isn't there something you wanna say?" Blue asked with a little smile.

Red raised an eyebrow, "Like what."

Blue frowned, "Something concerning what day it is?"

Red paused, "Um... Wednesday?"

"No. The first of June?" She pushed, hoping to get something out of him.

"Summer?" Red tried again, raising his shoulders and holding up his hands unknowingly.

"No i-" Blue stopped herself, she looked down and after a second her tone changed, "Never mind." She said solemnly.

Red took notice of her mood switch, "Are you okay Blue?"

"Peachy. It's getting late, I need to go." She said getting up from her seat at Red's table.

"Are you sure? I mean if it's really important can't you just tell me?" He asked following her to her door.

"It's fine Red. I'll see you later okay?"

Red paused, and then opened the door for her, "Okay if you're sure."

"Good bye Red."

"Later." Red couldn't help but notice how the feeling of depression never left her voice.  
_

"And she then she left. I just thought I'd ask. She seemed really upset." Red said to Yellow.

"Um. June first is her birthday." Yellow broke it to Red.

At first there was silence as Yellow's revelation sunk in, "...Crud." He finally said.

"You know I'm surprised. Even Green remembered and bothered to get her something."

"I could've sworn her birthday was June seventh."

"No it's the first. Seventh is someone else we know I think." Her tone changed from informative to soft, "You should probably talk to her." Yellow said, "Rest up and tell her you're sorry tomorrow. I'm sure she'll understand."

"Yeah you're right. Thanks Yellow."

Yellow chuckled warmly in response. Just then there was a loud crash that made Yellow cringe.

"Red I'm sorry I have to go." All Red heard before Yellow hang up was, "Chuchu! Are you in the pantry again?"  
_

June 2nd

Blue was sitting up in her room with a smile on her face. She was petting what looked like an Eevee, there was a knock on her bedroom door.

"Come in." She invited.

The knob turned and in came Red, "Hey Blue?"

"Oh hey Red." She greeted him with disappointment in her voice, "How long have you been here?"

"A little while actually, I would've been up here sooner but uh." He paused.

"Did my dad keep you." Blue asked with a knowing grin.

"Yeah... Nice guy." Red said with an ever so slight hint of sarcasm.

Blue's father wasn't the horrible, unnecessarily overprotective kind typically seen on television. But when you've been reunited with your daughter after a kidnapping eleven years ago, you want to double check everything. He came off to Red as more paranoid than protective. He let Red go soon enough, eventually remembering him as one of the people who helped him and his wife escape that Team Rocket fiasco. Red tried to shake his mind of it and get back to what he was there for.

"Anyways Blue." Red stopped and sighed before going on, "I know what you meant yesterday and I... Well, I'm..." Blue turned away from him, "I'm sorry I forgot your birthday." Red forced out of him.

There was silence. Red wanted Blue to say something, something to know she was okay. He'd already apologized so why did she still seem so upset? Maybe something else was bothering her? He secretly hoped so, but if it was Blue would talk to him about it wouldn't she?

Red decided he needed to break the silence, "Where'd you get the Eevee?" He asked.

"It's my Ditto." She replied, the small brown creature morphed back briefly to show itself to Red.

"Oh, I see." Red replied, "Is anything else bothering you?" He asked, Blue looked back at him with slightly furrowed eyebrows, he sighed and said; "Okay, I'm really sorry. It was stupid and insensitive of me, and I won't forget again okay? I could've sworn your birthday was the seventh."

Blue was silent, "Well you didn't say anything like, 'happy almost birthday' either. You're the very last person I'd expect to forget. I mean I lived with you for a year and a half." She said and turned her head back to her wall.

Red averted his eyes downward and thought for a moment, "…What can I do to make it up to you?"

With her head turned away from him, Red didn't see the mischievous smile on Blue's face, she turned back with a straight, solemn face and asked; "Well what did you get me?"

"Huh?"

"You knew my birthday was in June still. You did get me a present, didn't you?" She asked.

Red stammered, "Ah. Yeah, I um." He yelled at himself mentally, "Red you stupid elastic waistband! You came all the way to the Sevii Islands to apologize about a birthday you forgot and you didn't even bring a present! Think of something, think of something, think of something." A thought came to him, "Well... Actually, I was gonna take you somewhere." He then thought to himself; "Yeah okay, that's good, go with that."

"Really." Blue said with some shock.

"If uh, if you have the time I mean."

Blue looked up and thought for a moment, "Okay. I'm sure mummy and daddy won't mind if I take some time to myself. So what did you have in mind?"

Red drew a blank, "I... Where do you wanna go."

Blue had to try and hold back a devilish smile.  
_

"So, I don't know, what about these ones?" Blue asked, Red groaned, "Hey, it was your idea to take me out."

"I know, I'm sorry." Red replied.

The were at jewelry store in a mall. It was modest for a jewelry store, not unlike something you'd find in any other mall. Blue was trying on a pair of small cyan earrings. They looked sort of like blue raspberry candies. And, to Red's immediate attention, this whole little spree cost what would be the equivalent of $900.

"It could be worse, I could've taken you clothes shopping. At least all of this will fit in one bag."

"I wouldn't mind. I least I could afford that." Red said.

"I'm being good." She replied, she stood up, "I'm gonna go ask how much these ones are. Could I borrow-"

Before she could finish Red held up a black wallet, "Take it, just take it."

"Come on Red."

"No I mean it." He smiled, "It's _your_ present."

Blue looked at him blankly before taking the wallet from him and walking off. Red slouched against a wall and looked around for a second. Unable to find a clock, he checked his Pokégear for the time, they'd been there an hour and a half. He was really spoiling her today, not that he felt he had any right to complain. After a minute, Red walked up to the counter where Blue was, just as she was finishing things up and putting the newly purchased items in her bag.

"We ready?" He asked.

"Yeah let's go." She replied handing him back his wallet.

"You guys make a cute couple." The worker behind the counter said.

Blue giggled and Red tried to reply, "Well, she's not-"

The worker stopped him, "I know where you're going with that sentence but, you just sat here for little over an hour watching this girl try on half our store. At this point she may as well be."

Blue laughed again and Red just let that conversation go, "So do I have _any_ money left?" He asked on their way out.

"I was careful." Blue said.

"No I mean if I have enough we could get something to eat. If you're hungry anyway."

Blue looked up and put a finger to her chin, thinking to herself, "Hmm. Well no but, do you still have time to hang out?" Blue asked.

"I guess." Red answered.

"Come on, there's this place I wanna go to, it's right outside of town." Blue pulled his arm, leading him away.  
_

Red and Blue looked out with humbled awe, "Wow." Red said.

"I know right?" Blue added knowingly.

They were sitting on a ledge about two storeys or so high overlooking the beach. Blue wanted to come here specifically to watch the sunset. The sky was turning a red-orange. The water was sparkling brightly and the fading sun's rays felt good on their skin. Blue felt she could fall asleep right there.

"This is nice." Red said.

"Yeah, I don't remember how I found this place. But I like to come out here."

"I can see why." A brief silence came over them, Red looked over at Blue, looking out at the water and smiling, he looked away briefly to collect himself, looked back and spoke up, "Hey Blue."

"Hm?" She looked back at him.

"Remember those earrings you lost when you were twelve?"

"Yeah?" She replied, Red held his hand out, he was holding a pair of dangler earrings and on the end there were sapphires in the shape of teardrops, "Oh my gosh, where'd you find them?" She asked, taking them from him.

"I didn't, Vui did last night."

"Where is he?"

"I don't have him with me, I only carry six Pokémon at a time, he's at home."

"Well I'll have to snuggle him later."

Red chuckled, "So, I'm sorry I'm such a jerk. Forgive me?"

Blue looked at the earrings and then back at Red, "Red, I have a confession to make." Red cocked an eyebrow, "I don't care that you forgot my birthday."

"Eh?"

"I just wanted to mess with you and see how you react." She admitted, "When you offered to take me somewhere, I just went with it. I was gonna tell you even before I thought of it."

"So you pretended to be upset with me, took advantage of my guilt and made me spend a bunch of money on jewelry for you?" He said with an annoyed look on his face.

"You expected anything less?" Blue said slyly.

Red kept his irritated expression for a second more, but switched it to a calmer one, almost matching Blue's smug look, "Five years and you haven't changed at all."

"Well I don't know about 'at all'." She added.

They looked back out at the ocean, saying nothing and enjoying the view for a few seconds, "...So, you were never mad at me." Red said, turning to Blue, "Are we still friends?"

"The best." Blue said, wrapping an arm around his neck.

Red brought his arm up and rested it on Blue's shoulder, intent on spending the next hour watching the sun set. Out of all his friends, Blue was probably the weirdest, five years of knowing her and he still didn't completely understand her. She was always doing things like this, being tricky. Sometimes Red wondered what it'd be like to be in Blue's head for a day. Then he'd always think he might be better off not knowing.

Either way, he secretly didn't mind spoiling her, she'd tricked him into doing it so many times. He'd never be dumb enough to tell Blue this but somehow he thought she probably knew. Regardless, Blue had always been there for him when he needed someone, and it _was_ her birthday. The one he conveniently forgot. Red was glad Blue wasn't upset with him. He'd hate to lose a friend like her.  
_

I wanted to keep it simple. I didn't really intend it as LuckyShipping, I wanted it to be platonic. But the moment took me and I threw in the "you make a good couple" part. Blue's parents literally have NO development, so I'm experimenting with what I want them to be like. I also thought about doing something with Silver, but it wasn't going anywhere, so I opted for this story instead. The reason, I chose the seventh for Blue's mistaken birthday is because for those of you who didn't know or forgot, MY birthday is the seventh. Well, I don't have much else to say... Buh-bye.

Update: Due to life complications Ruby's will be late... Well later than usual. I really need to break this trend. _


	6. Like Father Like Son

Holy crap, an update! No but really. I had my trip, I came back, I started my second year of college, I'm sick right now, my family is up to it's ears in medical crap without me being ill, I live in a home with six animals that are needy and my cat always wants to spend quality time at the most inopportune moments, I wonder if this is how a Pokémon Trainer with a full team would feel. You'll remember I said I had some drama with my ex-girlfriend, we talked, we're okay now, it's in the past, I _don't_ want to talk about it. I can't say no whenever someone asks me for help so I'm working on other people's crap and putting off my own, I haven't seen my dad for months, I'm very political minded and keep up with a lot that's happening, like the Protect IP and SOPA bills that could get me thrown in jail for contributing to this website at all. All of these things contribute to my absence, but above all(with the possible exception of the IP and SOPA bills and personal issues) I just don't have as much fun with my fics as I used to.

I came to this site knowing I was way out of my element, and it shows in my earlier work. While I feel it's gotten stronger a lot of my weaknesses remain. Imagery is tedious for me, every time I think I'll go the extra mile to proper prose I think "who could possibly care _that_ much?" and hold off, it feels like I always leave the Y out of the word they SOMEWHERE in the document or something similar, and I can't keep a schedule to save my life. I'm happy I got my ideas out there and expressed myself a little bit, and could experiment, I feel I've grown as a writer, which is the important thing. But after doing so I've decided that this isn't for me and I should go back to what I was originally doing(comics). Also, I'm getting POed that the document uploader doesn't let me use underscores or hyphens. I will at least try to finish what I started though. What do you guys think, is it better to finish something just for the sake of finishing or should one stop altogether if they're not having fun anymore? I'll try and get the three other stories out today and tomorrow but don't bet on a horse yet. It's been so long I don't think anyone's even kept enough attention and no one will be left to review this but in any case, here we go.

/

Ruby and Norman were outside in a small, wooded area, the same place that Ruby helped Wally catch his Kecleon, standing some steps away from each other.

"You're gonna be real embarrassed when I walk away from this with a Balance Badge." Ruby boasted.

"On the contrary I'll be very proud of you if you manage not to cry when you lose. And you _will_ lose." He said with a smirk, pulling out a Poké Ball.

Ruby readied his own Poké Ball. They sent out their individual Pokémon as if on some invisible queue. Ruby released his Swampert "Zuzu", and Norman his Slaking. One was a bulky, gorilla-like creature with mostly brown fur but white collar and head fur. It sported a prominent, jutting brow and a pink, pig like nose. The other was a large, blue creature with thick arms and legs. It had a wide mouth with small, pointed jaw protrusions, and two large and pronounced black fins on its head that ended at its orange eyes. And finally it had a huge, black tail fin.

Norman figured Ruby would use his Swampert, he taught Ruby almost all he knew about battling, it wouldn't make sense to use his other Pokémon like Coco, Nana or Ruru, since Norman knew all that they could do. Zuzu, was an unknown, Ruby had a better chance with that Pokémon.

"Zuzu. Muddy Water." Ruby commanded.

A stream of dirty brown water that looked like an ocean wave at the end blasted from the water Pokémon's mouth. Slaking was hit but endured.

Norman folded his arms and smirked, "Slaking, Yawn."

A sound wave filled the air, it was to produce a psychological effect. Swampert grew drowsy and soon it would be lulled to sleep. Ruby scowled, Norman was trying to eliminate Ruby's options from the beginning.

"Don't worry about it Zuzu." Ruby pulled out another Poké Ball, "Mimi!" He shouted releasing his Milotic.

Milotic were 20 foot long sea serpent like Pokémon. It had a cream coloring with red eyes and three black dots down it's neck, and it had a point on it's head. Also on its head were thin red eyebrows that were very long that moved up and curled to make a heart shape, and thick, red, hair-like protrusions draping over the sides of it's head. Its tail was the most elegant and elaborate part of it's body, with striations of black, and four large scales, blue with red spots in the middle, overlap at the tip of the tail to look like a fan.

"Mimi, Water Pulse." Ruby commanded.

Rings of water ejected from the majestic Pokémon's mouth, smashing against Slaking and the surrounding area, and splashing Norman a little. It also started to rain.

Norman smirked, "Thunderbolt." He commanded almost coldly.

The enormous Slaking summoned lightning from it's body that struck the opposing serpent Pokémon as it fell to the ground in pain.

"That Slaking is moving way too fast." Ruby said to himself, "Unless... yeah, duh Ruby." He said after spotting a Spinda lazing off.

It was Spinda's Skill Swap. A move that swapped the natural "abilities" between two Pokémon, in this case, Spinda's "Own Tempo" and Slaking's "Truant". Own Tempo preventing confusion and Truant causing the Pokémon to be slow and lazy.

"Two down." Norman said smugly, "Feel like giving up yet?"

"You assume too much dad." Ruby replied, "Mimi, Blizzard."

The Milotic rose and blew gently from it's mouth a powerful, freezing wind. The surrounding area was drenched with water from the previous Pokémon attacks and the newly arrived rain. It froze over the area as well as Slaking, frozen solid. Norman stared with disbelief.

"It's Zuzu's Mud Sport." Ruby said, petting a sleeping, curled up Swampert across the head, "I had him use it before he dozed off. It weakens the power of electric type attacks, which is how Mimi is still standing. So how about you? Wanna call it quits dad? I've just immobilized your strongest Pokémon, what do you have left to throw at me?" He boasted.

"Flamethrower!" Norman yelled.

Slaking erupted a stream of fire from it's mouth, melting and weakening the ice until Slaking was able to release itself.

"You can't win Ruby." Norman said, "Thunderbolt."

Again, Mimi was struck. Ruby pulled out his Milotic's empty Poké Ball and recalled her, pulling her from the line of fire.

"You have no Pokémon out Ruby, I could easily dispose of you with my next attack from either Slaking or Spinda. You've lost."

Ruby stood firm and lifted his hand into the air, "The weather is under its command, be it torrential rain, glaring sun or unforgiving snow."

Norman raised an eyebrow, what was that flamboyant boy of his on about now, he wondered.

"The Pokémon Castform, it's name is Popo." He brought his hand down and pointed at his father and his Pokémon, "Weather Ball!"

Norman looked up just in time to see a spinning ball coming at him. He and his Pokémon dived to avoid it but Spinda was too slow and Slaking was too big of a target. Norman surveyed his Pokémon and then turned to his son. From the sky descended Castform. An artificial Pokémon designed to help scientists predict the weather, since it was raining it was in its "Rain Form". It's body resembled a cloud and was a dark grey, it's larger head resembled a raindrop.

"Do you remember this Pokémon dad? It used Sunny Day while it was raining to stop my attack and end our battle last time. You kinda won and would've taken me home right there if you didn't change your mind at the last minute." He said, "It's funny, now the move Rain Dance was used on an otherwise normal day and you're being beat by me, using that same Pokémon. The situation has completely reversed."

"Not bad. You didn't make the move I thought you would. How fortunate for me." Norman replied.

Ruby raised an eyebrow before he heard a "thud" behind him, "Coco, Ruru!" He yelled.

His Delcatty, and Kirlia were laying behind him with a very tired Vigoroth that had been keeping them busy standing over them.

"Using Ruru's Light Screen to reflect the surroundings and hide while Coco used Safeguard to prevent me from using Yawn again was a nice tactic. When you released your Milotic you blocked my view of you and released three other Pokémon. You've gotten much better at sneaking your strategy by the opponent, but that's still something you learned from me. I might not have caught it if you hadn't been forced to bring Castform into this, but I still thought one Poké Ball wasn't enough to produce that much kick up." Norman explained.

Ruby scowled returning his defeated Pokémon to their respective Poké Balls.

"I doubt that Weather Ball will help you now." Norman added.

Ruby lifted his head to see Vigoroth, Slaking and Spinda surrounding him, he smiled smugly, "Oh please, Earthquake!" He yelled grabbing a hold of Castform as if to protect it.

The ground rumbled and shook. Earthquakes were common to that area, another by command of a Pokémon was nothing new. The already exhausted Vigoroth fell over in defeat. And as if to take its place, Zuzu stood up.

"I see, the rain, the stalling, leaving him out of his Poké Ball. You were attempting to wake your Pokémon." Norman said, "But you know, without Coco using Safeguard I could just use Yawn again."

"Well then I'd better make this quick." He replied, releasing his Castform, "Things are a lot different than they were back when I ran away, dad, I'm stronger and I have a completely different set of tricks up my sleeve. It's like I said earlier, you're a Gym Leader, I'm a Pokédex Owner, Hydro Cannon!"

"Hydro what?" Norman raised an eyebrow.

And huge jet stream that could only be described as "the Ultimate Water-type Attack" came from the Swampert's mighty maw. Slaking was sent barreling into a several trees behind it, said trees were pretty much destroyed in the process the attack was so powerful.

Norman reacted quickly, "Teeter Dance!"

Spinda performed a wobbly dance that confused the opposing Pokémon. "Confusion" in this case being a psychological status ailment that disoriented the Pokémon and sometimes caused it to injure itself accidentally.

"Popo, Weather Ball!"

This was one such occasion, the Castform launched it's attack, which missed altogether, while rushing forward and crashing into the ground. Ruby, seeing what was going on, jumped on Zuzu's back. He would have to take matters into his own hands.

"Let's try this again." Zuzu charged Norman and his Pokémon.

Slaking stood firm, "Hyper Beam."

"Hydro Cannon."

No more than two feet from each other, the two Pokémon unleashed their respective attacks. The ultimate water type attack and a powerful beam of concentrated energy from opposing mouths. Hydro Cannon itself was a variation on Hyper Beam. Just as well since they were a Normal-type and Water-type using Normal-type and Water-type moves respectively, the attacks were even more powerful. It was called the Same-Type-Attack-Bonus, or STAB. In addition, it was still raining, which gave even more power to Water-type attacks. The two seemed to be in a deadlock, but Slaking was stronger and eventually overpowered Swampert sending him back several feet, knocking Ruby off and sending him through the air before landing hard. Both attacks prevented them from attacking again right away, they required "recharging".

"Popo!" Ruby yelled.

Popo charged and floated in front of Norman ready to fire another Weather Ball while Norman quickly held up a Poké Ball with a Slakoth in it, ready to release it if needed, "You wouldn't do it." He taunted the Pokémon, "And it doesn't matter anyway." He added as Slaking started to stir, Castform was forced to back away as Slaking approached, its own confusion preventing it from being able to act.

"Endeavor." Ruby commanded.

Slaking struggled to keep from falling to it's knees. Endeavor was a move that cut the opponents HP to be equal to that of the user's HP, and Zuzu had just taken a pretty nasty hit earlier. Ruby recalled Popo to her Poké Ball. Spinda could do little more at this point. So it went on again.

"Hyper Beam."

"Hydro Cannon."

They clashed again, and again seemed evenly matched until the two attacks passed through each other and both Pokémon fainted, simply unable to go any further. Ruby and Norman reached for their last Pokémon but stopped. They both paused before returning their defeated Pokémon. They stayed silent. Their strongest Pokémon were defeated, they could keep going but neither was sure they had any tricks left. None that would prove useful against each other anyway. Therefore a ceasefire is the only logical outcome. Ruby and his father weren't always logical but they simply didn't feel the need to continue.

Norman returned Spinda to it's Poké Ball and approached Ruby. They looked at each other.

Staring each other down, Norman forced himself to clear his throat and swallow his pride, "Good match."

"Likewise." Ruby returned, his eyes briefly darting to his right.

"How did you hold up against Slaking's Hyper Beam if it overpowered your Swampert the first time?" Norman asked with genuine curiosity.

"Zuzu's ability, 'Torrent', when its health is low, water-type attacks are boosted. That combined with the rain that seems to be just now stopping gave us the extra push we needed to match you."

"I see." There were three seconds of silence, "Do you want to grab something to eat?" Norman asked.

"Sure." Ruby replied in a surprisingly nonchalant voice, walking past his father.

/

A couple of ice cream cones later, Ruby and Norman had come back to the Petalburg Gym. The subtle sound and shifting tone of their conversation would make an unknowing soul believe they were a normal father and son. They went inside. The Gym had never seemed so homey. Once inside they sat next to each other on the floor, backs against the wall. Ruby stared out the nearest window, it wasn't raining but it was cloudy.

"Your mother was right, we're idiots." Norman said.

"No, you're an idiot. I'm just flamboyant." Ruby joked, Norman smiled, "What happened to us today? We just lost it."

"Well, we have a very... Strange relationship Ruby."

"And another thing, who names their _son_ 'Ruby'?"

"Are you still on about that? Your mother and I were friends with Professor Birch and we decided to name our children after their birthstones. You just had the luck of being born today." Norman explained, "If it makes you feel better I wanted to name you 'Brendan'."

"Nah I don't care, it was just a thought."

"I know you gave up battling for a time but it's still in you. Maybe you, _we_, just needed to get it out of our systems."

"Well if that's true, maybe we should make this a regular thing." Ruby suggested.

"You sure? You could get hurt."

"We're already disfunctionally violent as it is."

"True." Norman put his hand on his boy's shoulder, "Happy Birthday son."

/

You know the beginning of this story was originally the middle. I had something planned out with Ruby's mother, Ruby and Norman arguing and escalating to the point where they needed to battle. But I didn't have much, and what I did have was boring. So I just cut it out. I figured the remainder of the story told enough that one could piece together any missing bits in the story.

Some time ago, I noticed I was using less and less imagery in my stories. So I tried out describing the Pokémon. Not fun. How exactly ARE you supposed to describe Castform? And yep, another battle. They just fit so well and make the story feel more like Pokémon Special. Plus they're fun. I like coming up with clever things the trainers do with they're Pokémon to win and trick they're opponent. I wasn't sure if I wanted Muddy Water to be a wave like in the games or a jet stream like it appeared in the book so I compromised. And yeah, Slaking shouldn't have been able to get out even if it could breath fire. Let's just say it had an Aspear Berry and move on.

One line I feel I have to be careful not to cross is to not make it seem like they're too prepared for this situation. I think the charm in Special's battles as opposed to other Manga's is that Special is running on a defined move set for the Pokémon, not just making up powers as it continues. I want to make it seem like the trainers are being clever with what they have available and that they don't come off as prepared specificly for _this_. For those of you wondering how releasing Mimi was able to hide Ruby releasing Popo, Coco and Ruru. Remember Poké Balls release a cloud of... I guess it's dust, in PokeSupe. Norman may have noticed because the cloud was big. It's not the bright flash of light like in the anime. So yeah.

On an ending note, I left this match a draw since Ruby and Norman quit but could have continued, but we know that Sapphire defeated Norman, and Norman claimed Ruby had enough potential to be a better battler than he was. So from a canon standpoint, do you think Ruby would win in a battle against his father? Furthermore, Ruby vs Sapphire. Any thoughts? Because Ruby's inability to beat his father in this story would suggest that he can't beat Sapphire, but it's just a fanfic, so I'm curious, who do you think would win in a battle between Ruby and Sapphire?

Also considering that the Japanese wouldn't know that "Ruby" is a girl's name in English I don't think Ruby would know either, I just wanted to add that bit about "Brendan" as a shout out to the games.

Peace out.


	7. Worst Birthday Ever

This one made it to just 15 pages. I normally aim for 10. Oh well, the last one was a little short. Oh yeah I added Ruby's and a personal update in the rare event any of my original readers still follow me. Go back and read it if you haven't. Well Gold's was the hardest so far because I couldn't think of anything for him. I had the idea to do a story about him just spending the day with his mom but it didn't work. Eventually inspiration struck, and now Gold seems more indirectly involved in his. That wasn't intentional, it just happened. Well anyway, let's just jump into this.

/

Gold felt a tickling on his face, "Not today Ataro." The tickling started again, "Go away let me sleep for the love of-" Tickled again, "Is it mom?" He asked, opening one eye, Ataro nodded, "Okay, give me the usual."

An Oddish helped him up, a Kakuna fixed his hair, the "usual". They did this every other morning. Gold lived in a house with several Pokémon. They had been with him since birth, and were an extended family. Once dressed and cleaned up Gold proceeded down stairs to the kitchen where his mother was.

"Morning Mom."

"Morning. How'd you sleep?" She asked.

"Fine." He replied taking a seat at the table.

"Did you want to go somewhere?"

"I didn't think of anything besides what I had planned so I guess not."

"So, we'll just figure something out as we go along?" She said putting the finishing touches on the food she was preparing.

"Like every other year?"

"Sure, you have your own money?"

"We gonna spoil ourselves?"

"Why, did you get me a present?"

"You should know better by now." Gold said with a sarcasm that was both honest but meant no real condescension.

"It's fine," She said, placing a plate with a hamburger and some cut up carrots in front of her son with a small bowl of rice, "nothing'll ever top my twenty-seventh." She finished, putting her arms around her son's neck and hugging him.

"Twenty-seventh? Oh, right... You're welcome." Gold said jokingly.

His mother lightly smacked the back of his head, so light in fact it was more like a gentle push. She walked around to the other side of the table and took her own seat with another plate of food that resembled Gold's but had more on it, like bread and asparagus.

"Eat those carrots."

"Aw come on Ma, it's my birthday." Gold pleaded.

"Mine too. Now eat."

"Whatever." Gold gave in, putting one of the cut up carrots in his mouth with apathy.

/

"Hey Mom, I'm gonna go see what Silver and Crystal are doing, I wanna see if they remembered my birthday." Gold called from the front yard, preparing to leave.

"They know, I called them a few days ago." She replied, standing in the doorway.

"Aw Ma, I wanted to see if they knew, well whatever, can't be helped now." He said with his arms behind his head, "So I'll be back around eight. Sound good?"

"Behave yourself."

"That's not happening either Ma." He quipped as his Mantine, "Mantaro" swooped down with a small school of Remoraid under it.

Gold held out his extendable billiard cue and as two Remoraid clutched to ends in their mouths he was off. The way they flew off it looked like Gold was hang gliding.

"Happy Birthday Mom!" Gold cried before he got very far away.

"Happy Birthday Gold!" She called back. She looked after him for a moment before turning back to her thoughts, verbally reciting her plans to herself, "Okay, Gold's away 'til eight he says, knowing him, he'll be back by eleven. I've got enough time and money to get myself something new and nice, maybe go out to eat," She lowered her voice and said under her breath; "Of course I may have to pick up a man first." She chuckled to herself as she started to walk off while putting her coat on.

/

The Pokémon school in Violet City, in the judgement of Crystal at least, was the best possible place on earth. Well, it was for her anyway. It doubled as a foster home, and Crystal was the kind of person who, upon hearing this, couldn't _not_ look into it. Typically she was the only volunteer. Others would come and go, usually on some trip.

She seemed to be the only one who stayed with it. Her kindness was rewarded, the children loved her for one, and for two, as tired as it may've sounded she just liked knowing she did some very nice things and gave so much to this place. If nothing else went her way it gave her comfort and kept her warm at night. That aside, they were still children. And like all children, they would eventually tire someone out, even if that someone was as used to it as Crystal was. And as awful as she may've felt about it later she wanted to be anywhere else but the greatest place on earth right now.

"I sacrifice, 'Alpha the Magnet Warrior' and 'Time Wizard' to summon my 'Dark Magician', and attack you for 2500 life points. Your turn." Said a young boy fiddling with with some cards in his hands sitting across from Crystal.

She scratched her head and looked at the cards she had with a puzzled expression, "Um... G-... Go fish." She blurted.

The boy, who couldn't be older than six, laughed happily, "No really, what's your move?"

It took some effort on Crystal's part to keep from groaning. But a personal savior arrived in the form of Earl, the head of the school.

"Crystal. That boy you asked me to look out for arrived just now."

She resisted the urge to blurt "oh thank god" as she turned her attention back to the child, "Well, sorry, looks like I have to go, does someone wanna take over?"

A volunteer from the small group of the children that had been watching was eager to take her place and she was out the door with the repeated use of "bye Crystal" trailing behind her. She made it a few yards away from the school to where Silver was.

"Hey Silver." He waved in response, "You ready?" She asked.

"As I'm ever gonna get." He answered.

A voice coming from the area of the door to the school yelled out; "Crystal is that your boyfriend!"

Crystal was visibly annoyed, "Go back to class Violet!" She commanded.

"Kay!" She shouted back, scampering indoors.

"Why does she always ask me that when I'm with a boy?"

"Because she's a little girl?" Silver replied.

"I know, it just gets irritating after a while." She perked up immediately after saying that, "But, I'm not gonna worry about it until tomorrow, when I'm good and rested."

"Shall we go then?"

"We shall."

"I think you forgot your hat." Silver pointed out as they began to walk.

"Oh well, I'll come back for it." Crystal said after patting her head to make sure it was really gone.

"You sure? Personally I'd like to hold this off." Silver said.

"Oh come on, it won't be that bad."

"I don't know, I still think the whole 'we'll be unfailingly nice to you on your birthday' thing was a dumb idea. I don't know if I can honestly put up with Gold's... antics for a whole day." Silver explained, finding the nicest possible word for said antics.

"I meant it won't be that bad on your part. Just don't mention Blue, he won't get any ideas and this whole thing will be over before you know it."

"That's a nice thought but we know better."

"Silver, let's not make this glass half empty versus glass half full. Let's just get through this. Gold's a bit of jerk but it's not like he'd take advantage of us."

Suddenly from behind, "You know I wish I had a joke to go with what you just said but I can't think of one."

Silver and Crystal turned around and who should be standing there but; "Gold." Crystal said.

"We aren't even where you said to meet." Silver pointed out.

"Eh, I got here early." Gold shrugged, he had his hands hanging by the wrist over his cue perched on his neck, "So, I was gonna ask if you guys remembered what today was but-"

"Your mom called and told us." Silver and Crystal said in unison, hijacking Gold's sentence.

Their eyes widened slightly with surprise and then they turned to each other with a look that could only be described as "didn't see that coming".

"That was weird. We need to hang out more, you guys turn into robots when I'm gone." Gold said, "But as long as you remember, remember what you promised?"

"Yeah Gold. 'Let you be you.'" Crystal replied.

"Yeah but I gotta make sure you guys hold to it. Hey Crystal have I ever said you have a nice butt? I mean a _really_ nice butt?" Gold teased, Crystal lit up like a Christmas light and Silver looked back and forth between the two of them awkwardly, wondering if Crystal was going to backlash against this and if so, how bad it was going to be, "It's tight, round, it looks soft. Just layin' that out there."

Crystal kept her eyes closed, her eyebrows furrowed and had a scowl that looked like it could kill someone. Silver watched them in concern and maybe anticipation. He almost wanted to hit Gold for being such an insensitive idiot but he was actually scared for what Crystal might do to him. She didn't say a word; she didn't move either. She chose to keep that scowl and try and ignore what Gold had just said, against her better judgement.

"Hey Crys, you got anything to say?" He asked.

"No comment." She growled immediately after he finished, almost cutting him off.

"Wow, you're pretty dedicated to this." Gold put his hand to his chin, "I thought I had you with that one." He shrugged, "Well okay. Have fun with that knowledge, let's get going." He said, walking past them.

Crystal and Silver trailed behind, Crystal's face brimming with contempt, "So, still optimistic?" Silver asked.

"Shut up Silver." Crystal said in an uncharacteristically irritated voice.

/

Gold took a bite out of his vanilla cone with a look of satisfaction on his face, "Ah man. Mm. Thanks for paying you guys. Seriously, appreciate it." He said while Silver and Crystal quietly minded their confectioneries, "Hey Crys, about that whole 'butt' thing. I just said that as soon as I thought of it, I haven't actually been looking. Or have I? You would never know." Gold teased, Crystal ignored him, "Come on, say something, you guys are boring me."

Crystal slipped her spoon out of her mouth, "How was your day?"

"I haven't had a day yet, try harder." He pleaded.

Crystal tried again, "Well, okay, lately I've been-"

"Wait, I seem to have stopped caring." Gold cut her off, "Hey Silver, I was thinking about Blue the other day and-"

"Gold please don't." Silver stopped him.

"What, it's not like I groped her anything. Wait." Gold began, Silver's face wasn't angry looking necessarily but rather it looked like that of a madman at his wits end, "No, no I totally did that... I feel uncomfortable," He stood up, "guys I have to get something I'll be right back."

And with that he left, walking past them. Silver's expression became blank. He sat for a moment doing nothing, Crystal wondered if he was okay. It was sort of like the way he had been worried earlier when Gold mentioned Crystal's apparently nice backside. Silver reached for the knife on the counter, not caring at the moment about who the hell uses a steel steak knife in an ice cream parlor and started to turn as he stood up.

Crystal grabbed his left hand, the one clutching the knife just as he got out of his chair, "Silver no."

"I just wanna talk to him."

"It's not worth it."

"I _just_ wanna talk to him."

"It would cause more problems than it would solve."

Silver paused, after a second he turned back to Crystal and tossed the knife on the table, "I wasn't gonna do it anyway." He said as he sat back down, "If I were I'd be better off using Pokémon."

They returned to eating ice cream when Gold came back, his Aipom clutched onto his shoulder with it's tail holding up a large bag that had something rectangular in it, "Okay so like I was saying, Silver, you've known Blue since you were two right?"

"Yeah." Silver reluctantly replied.

"So were you toilet-trained by then or did she have to change your diapers for a while?" Gold asked.

Silver put an elbow on the table and put his forehead to his hand with an annoyed look.

/

In regions like Johto, most towns were a short walk away from each other. Violet City for example wasn't very far from Goldenrod. So naturally it didn't take Gold long to drag Silver and Crystal with him to his next destination. In this case not just Goldenrod city but Goldenrod Game Corner.

"I thought you said they kicked you out of this place." Silver mentioned.

"Ah they won't remember me." Gold ensured.

"What if we don't want to gamble?" Crystal asked.

"Then don't. They have arcade machines, just waste some time on those." Gold said as he put his arms behind his head and walked through the door as relaxed as someone could possibly look.

Crystal rolled her eyes, having no choice but to follow him, "Well how bad could it be?" She asked herself walking in through the door.

"You'd be surprised." Silver interjected, being only a few steps behind her.

Crystal raised an eyebrow. Silver told her of a time just last month when he was over at Gold's house. They were playing some kind of game. He couldn't remember what it was off the top of his head but Gold had apparently won and was whooping and hollering like a chimp. Silver had tried to ignore it and just let his overenthusiastic friend wear himself out. But that got harder because that same friend was chanting "in your face, in your face, in your face" with no end in sight.

"And then he started pelvic thrusting the air." Silver explained.

"That sounds like something Gold would do sadly." She replied, "If I knew he was gonna leave us to do our own thing I would've brought a book."

"Well he said there was an arcade somewhere in here. Let's just hope it's not too close to the pool tables."

/

Silver and Crystal were at one of the machines that they were ever so slightly surprised to learn Gold was telling the truth about, "No offense Silver, but you're _not_ very good at this game."

"It's the last boss." He replied.

"And you've been at him for," She checked the clock on her Pokégear quick before finishing, "fifteen minutes."

"Sorry." He said, trying not to break his concentration, "Okay what, does the block button on this thing not work?"

"You can't block the laser." Crystal explained.

"So do I have to beat him before he does it?"

"I think he does it at random." She replied just before that same laser was used again.

"K.O! YOU LOSE!" The in game voice cried.

"Really I hadn't noticed." Silver said, "So how _do_ you beat him?" Silver asked no one in particular.

"I can show you." Crystal offered.

Silver looked at her. He moved away from the from the machine while the "you lose" cutscene played. He flipped the coin he was planning to use to go again in Crystal's direction. She tried to catch it but missed, but before it fell to the floor she kicked as she would a Poké Ball. The coin flew back up to eye level where Crystal caught it and put it in the coin slot before the "Continue?" countdown finished.

"Nice save." Silver complimented.

"Thanks."

It was hardly two minutes later when; "K.O! YOU, SAVED THE EARTH!"

Silver's eyebrows were raised slightly, "Not bad. How did you know to do that?"

"I have this game at home." She answered.

"Excuse me." A man said, coming up behind them, "Are your names Silver and Crystal?"

"Yes." Crystal replied.

"I'm sorry but you have to leave."

/

"Yeah well your food sucks anyway!" Gold yelled from just outside the Game Corner.

"I can't believe you got kicked out again for doing the exact same thing." Silver said, rubbing his temples.

"So what? I wasn't betting. They can't take a joke." Gold claimed with his arms folded, "Whatever. Hey Crys let's go to your house."

"What? Why?"

"I've never seen it, besides, it'd be pretty mean if we all got together and I didn't let Bakutaro see his friends." He explained, holding up Bakutaro's Poké Ball, the Pokémon inside lying down and resting if not just sleeping, "Come on, be nice like you said and lead the way."

Crystal grabbed Silver by his shoulders and moved him in front of her before turning around, likely because of Gold's earlier comments on things she didn't want him looking at, though what she liked even less was the idea of Gold being in her house, "Someone kill me now." She said as the idea sunk in.

"An entire school of children would be completely destroyed if that happened." Silver reminded her.

Crystal just let that conversation go.

/

Crystal opened the door to her home with Silver and Gold close behind her. She and Silver had sickly looking faces on them.

"So it took like, a week to get it all off the wall. Hey Crys, where's your kitchen?" Gold asked, Crystal stopped to try and think of a nice way to say "you're not getting into my fridge and eating my food" but she didn't have to, "I need to put this bag down." He told her, holding up the bag with the rectangular item in it he and his Pokémon had been carrying the whole way. Crystal pointed to her kitchen which was just next to the living room hardly separated by half a wall that had a staircase jutting out of it, "Thanks." He finished, walking in.

Crystal walked over to her couch and let herself fall face down onto the cushions.

Silver walked over to where she was, "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'm gonna go check on the Pokémon then." He told her.

Referring to his Feraligatr, Crystal's Meganium "Megapyon", and Gold's Typhlosion, the aforementioned Bakutaro. They were all originally Pokémon in Professor Elm's lab, and through that, later coincidence and the eventual closeness of their trainers, these Pokémon more or less grew up together. To keep them happy, Gold, Silver and Crystal would come together and let them out of their Poké Balls to socialize. It helped that they were friends anyway, given all they'd been through. But as Silver turned to "check on them", Crystal sat up and grabbed his arm.

"No you're not." She insisted.

Silver didn't even want to hear why Crystal was objecting, his immediate reaction was to object to her objection. Words from both of them just flew into the air with no regard for what the other was saying. You could hardly understand them over each other talking at once. Something like "you can't leave me alone with him" worries about him bringing up Blue, being too tired and needing to get away, needing to be there because he can't be left alone in Crystal's house and basically every worry either one could possibly conceive of plausible or not. They started raising their voices and getting louder.

Eventually one of them, that one being Silver, had to snap, "Let go!"

"Don't yell at me!" She shouted standing up from the couch, they stopped and looked at each other, collecting themselves, "I'm sorry." Crystal was the first to apologize, "Why are we getting so mad?"

Silver turned his eyes to the area Gold was and back as if to point with them, and that was the only answer he could give her.

"Hey what with all the yelling." Gold said, coming up to them, they didn't say anything, "Since it's my birthday, can I ask you guys a favor? Go into the kitchen but wait until after I'm gone."

"After you're gone?" Crystal was confused.

"Yeah, I got some stuff I gotta do. But seriously, chill out you two." He told them, "Going now." He finished as he walked quickly out the door, from inside they could hear him shout; "I'm going Bakutaro but I'll leave you here to play for a while, be back!"

There were a few seconds of silence, "If he messed up my kitchen I'm gonna kill him."

"I noticed he didn't have that bag with him."

They looked back at each other and were briefly silent, "Okay." Crystal began, "I'll go in, and let's prepare for the worst." She walked with caution into her kitchen, once there Silver saw her eyes widen and her mouth drop open.

"What is it?" Silver asked in a tone that sounded half annoyed half unsurprised.

"You might wanna come in and see this." She replied.

Silver walked in and his face soon matched Crystal's. There was a chocolate cake sitting on Crystal's table. The bag it had come in was rolled up into a ball and had been tossed away from the cake, and there was a plastic covering placed behind the cake, having been taken off. There were two candles on the cake, a red one and a blue one that were lit somehow, knowing Gold he probably found a way to do it with a Pokémon, even in the absence of his one fire-type. And quite noticeably, in the middle of the cake were large words written in blue frosting that read "THANKS GUYS". Before the cake was a folded piece of paper.

"What is all this?" Crystal wondered aloud, Silver walked forward and picked up the note, Crystal walked up to him as he opened it, "What is it, what's it say?"

Silver read it out loud; "Hey guys. If you're reading this then my cake idea must've gone off without a hitch. I wrote this after I ditched you at the Game Corner so you wouldn't see me and I could figure this stuff out. I'm not the kinda guy who likes to get all sappy in person, I wouldn't have a whole lot I could bring myself to say so I wrote down what I wanted you to hear. If I've been driving you guys extra crazy it's not just because you can't give me crap back today, I've been trying really hard today to drive you guys insane. Yeah that's not very nice but it's me. I'm selfish, I don't usually care much about other peoples misfortunes. Sometimes though, I'd like to think I'm not completely selfish. That underneath the jerk who only thinks or cares for himself and does whatever he feels like there's something worth having around and caring about. I guess you guys see that, whatever it is. I tried to test that today. So thanks guys. Also, if you ever tell anyone I did this, even Blue, Silver, I will kill you both in your sleep."

Silver looked it over, "Is there more?" Crystal asked.

"There is on the back. 'And I swear they don't sell grey candles anywhere. That and what color is crystal supposed to be anyway? Then I remembered Crys dyed her hair blue again so I figured, red hair-blue hair, red candle-blue candle.'" Silver stayed silent for a few seconds, "Wow he actually put thought into this."

"So, somewhere under all the jerk he has a heart of _gold_?" Crystal quipped.

Silver raised an eyebrow and smiled, "Really?"

"I couldn't help myself." She replied, they turned their attention back to the cake quietly, still a bit disbelieving, "...I guess." She paused, "We should eat it, since he went to the trouble."

"Red hair-blue hair." Silver repeated.

They glanced in each other's direction briefly and bent over the table, inhaled, and swiftly blew out their respective candles.

/

Gold and Mantaro swooped down from the sky, having just come back from having more or less bought his own presents. Down there was Bakutaro to greet him, watching it's trainer getting progressively closer. He returned Mantaro and his numerous Remoraid to their Poké Balls before actually getting to the ground. He fell and landed a few feet down. When he stood up he saw Crystal and Silver coming up to him with small smiles on their faces.

"Hey guys. You go in the kitchen like I asked?"

"Red hair-blue hair." Crystal repeated.

Gold gave them a knowing smile, "Yeah you seem happy now but how do you know I didn't put something in the cake? Like laxatives or something?" Silver and Crystal darted the eyes away, they knew better than to think Gold would do that but they were still trying to be nice, which Gold noticed, "Alright it's kinda weird when you guys just take that crap you'd never take so if you want we could just drop the whole nice thi-"

Before he could even finish Silver and Crystal were in flurry. Yelling at him about privacy, what he does and doesn't have the right to look at, how some things are best kept to one's self, people he is not allowed to talk or even _think_ about, etcetera. He could hardly hear them over one and another. He just smiled with a raised eyebrow in acceptance.

/

"Why are we going to your house?" Silver shouted.

Gold had challenged them to a race with their flying Pokémon. The finish line being Gold's house. He took off without much explanation as to why they were racing and got a head start. Silver and Crystal considered staying and letting Gold take off but it _was_ still his birthday technically. Besides he would probably just come back and bug them for not chasing him so they figured "what the heck." It was only now that Silver got the chance to ask.

Gold landed before Silver did and then answered; "I just felt like it. Huh, I actually _did_ get back at eight." She said looking at his Pokégear, "Oh, and it's my mom's birthday so if she's there when we go in tell her 'happy birthday' and, hey where did Crystal go."

Silver turned around and looked for her, "I don't know, she couldn't have been that far behind me."

"I wasn't." Said Crystal from behind them both.

They turned around and saw her standing by the wall of Gold's house, "Crys?" Gold was shocked.

"What took you so long?"

"How did you get here ahead of us?" Gold asked.

"Secret." She replied, "Shall we go in then." She turned around and turned the knob as she said that and she shrieked as soon as the door was open, "Aah!" She whipped around, "I'm sorry! Leaving now!"

But her scream had alerted Gold and Silver who came running to see what startled her, and by the time she'd turned around Gold was staring through the door with horror on his face, "Mom!"

"Dad!" Silver exclaimed immediately after Gold, almost cutting him off.

The weight of those words and their implications hit Crystal, "Mom, Dad?" She turned back, "Wait what?... Oh my god no."

/

Gold, Silver and Crystal sat at the table in Gold's kitchen with noticeably disheveled, unsettled, maybe even slightly off-put looks. They had been sitting saying nothing to each other. They had nothing _to_ say. They just sat, absorbing and contemplating what they saw. Crystal's mother walked in but could do nothing to make the scene less awkward.

She was hesitant, unsure of what she should say, "Well this is an unusual way to introduce everyone's parents." None of the children reacted, "...Wow this is really awkward, Crystal," She walked behind her daughter's chair and put her hands on her shoulders, "we'll talk about this when we get home just... Let me know when you're ready to go." And with that she took her leave, Crystal had taken the time to look her mother's way before going right back to looking into space but other than that the three didn't even move.

After a few more seconds of silence Gold looked upward and said, "Worst, Birthday, _ever_!"

Silver and Crystal's only response was to move their eyes and look at their friend.

/

Poor Johto trio. Don't feel too bad for them though, one day they'll look back on this and laugh. Gold's present is that everyone accepts that he's selfish, but that's not all he is either. For those of you with bad memory, the Pokémon helping Gold out of bed comes from the manga, remember his introduction in volume 8? Sharing his birthday with his mother doesn't, I just thought would be kinda cool for Gold and his mom to both have the same birthday, and I chose 27th at random. And the burger for breakfast was a quirk I thought of based on a throw away line at the end of the GSC chapter.

I'm never sure what I should do with the dialogue of the characters so I just do what comes naturally. This has the result of giving the characters, who are for all intents and purposes Japanese, American-Canadian accents. Have you ever heard Americans and Canadians talk? We sound exactly the same. Well mostly, the more north you get in the US the more similar it is. But I think it works out okay. But the point I'm trying to bring up here is while there's no basis in it in either translation(Viz or Chuang Yi) to the best of my knowledge, Gold just strikes me as the kind of person to call his mom "Ma". And for the brief moments I get to write her, so long as she's loving and lenient I can write Gold's mom however I want for how ever briefly she appears.

"Silver, let's not make this glass half empty versus glass half full. Let's just get through this. Gold's a bit of jerk but it's not like he'd take advantage of us."

When I wrote this I was tempted to make Gold yell "surprise buttsex" but that wouldn't've worked. So I had him be my mouth briefly and say I wish I had joke to follow into what Crystal said but I didn't. The idea of Crystal failing to catch something with her hands and then catching it with her foot is carried over from my other story "Beach Day" it's just a charming little scenario. And you may've noticed the "YOU SAVED THE EARTH" K.O lines are from Marvel vs Capcom 3. I don't actually have that game. As a matter of fact I don't care much at all for Capcom. And I prefer DC to Marvel. But I do think Galactus is awesome. Granted that's not the game they're supposed to be playing but I got the sounds in my head from there.

The red hair-blue hair combo is something I noticed. There's actually a red-blue theme for the first three generations that I think is unintentional. Red and Blue, red haired boy-blue haired girl, Ruby and Sapphire, you see where I'm going with this? And I'll leave what Crystal found to your imagination. But don't say it was something generic think of something really off the wall and insane that would have been such WTF moment it would've either ruined or made the story legendary if I showed it. Was Crystal's mom involved or did she just come by later? You decide. My closing notes are getting longer. I guess I just have a lot to talk about.

And the cake is not a lie. There, I beat you to it. XD


	8. The Gift of Battle

I doubt I have any more than maybe seven or eight people who still check back here but that's what I get for being inactive I guess. I really do this more for me anymore than past or potential readers. My brief tenure in prose fanfiction has been quite the learning experience and helped me find my legs as a writer, but even so, the sooner I can leave it behind the better. None the less, I hope to get myself back to a working schedule, fell pretty far since my grandma died but that's far enough behind me that I think I should try to get back to it, or try if nothing else. If you see it cut off near the bottom it's because I can finish it within the night but I want it uploaded on what is technically Red's birthday(where I am anyway). Sorry about that. Anyway, enough of me depressing you, here's a story to make up for it.

**Update:** Okay there was some problems with the document(not the site, the document) that cut it off but now the whole thing should be there.

Early morning on August 8th, the day it should feel different but it just never does. For Red at least. He never did more than little things for himself on his birthday. You'd think living on one's own with only Pokémon would mess someone up badly but Red was very well adjusted. Much, much better adjusted than someone in his position should've been anyway, even more so than many of his colleagues who did have guardians looking after them. He was not devoid of social human contact, he spent a lot of time outside, talking to others, living his life as though he wasn't any different for the fact, he might not have been, all things considered. Still he grew up mostly with just his Poliwag.

Perhaps he wasn't all that okay, maybe he was just so backwards in the head that he seemed otherwise. But if it had any benefits, it was that Red didn't have much to expect or worry about for a long time. Not that he didn't appreciate the fact that people would come to see him, mostly from his twelfth onward, it's just that he didn't feel that the day he was born was anything all that special. That wasn't a bad thing, at least he didn't think so. Not when you're one of those people who can make everyday that doesn't involve some terrorist conspiracy to take over the world a good day.

It was just a day to him, so like any day he forced himself from his bed to find only Vui was there to meet him, per usual. He smiled knowingly.

...

Outside his house, some of Red's Pokémon were running laps around the others. It was a habit that Pika, Poli and Saur had developed while training under Green during a time when Red and Green had accidentally switched Pokémon. Gyara, a Pokémon that normally flew around anyway and Lax, a Pokémon that preferred to laze around more than anything normally didn't join in. Lax sleeping and Gyara watching as the three Pokémon circled him. Well four technically. Aero was flying above the other five but otherwise following the running group. Vui was usually Red's stay-at-home Pokémon, that watched the house and was eager for his return if he left, so it dutifully stayed inside even if his other Pokémon were used to going outside every morning.

Coming out the doorway, their trainer yelled; "Ten-hut!" Taking attention, the six of them came running up to their trainer with varying degrees of excitement. Even Lax had woken up, being trained to be a light sleeper, and walked calmly after the others, "I couldn't resist." Red thought aloud, "You guys excited?" From the looks of them they were in fact very excited.

Red was smiling at them with nothing to say until a voice came from a few feet behind him and to his left, "Excited for what?"

He turned his head and saw none other than Blue standing there having snuck up on him somehow, "Hey."

"Hey." She properly greeted.

She walked up to him and gave him a hug, resting her arms on his shoulders and pulling him towards her by the back of the neck. Red was caught off guard at first, perhaps even a little nervous, but he picked himself up quickly.

"So you miss me?" He said, semi-sarcastically, "It's been what, two months?"

She released him and put one hand to her waist, letting the other arm hang, "Two months and six or seven days, the time between my birthday and yours yes."

"That long eh?"

He meant to say something else after that but Blue spoke up first, "Not long enough that I've lost the key I had from when I lived here." She said, flashing said key, "And not so long that I don't know exactly what's gonna happen when I do this." And before Red could react properly she dived for his front door, opened it and called out; "Vui!" The Pokémon jolted up, coming into visibility from the couch, ears perked up, "Come 'ere." On that exact command Red's Espeon jumped from the couch and scampered over to the brunette that called it. Blue knelt down to meet him, scratching behind his ears and under his chin, "Who's my Vuivee?"

"Vuivee? That's a new one." Red said to her.

"How can you stand to keep him cooped up in your claustrophobic old house." Blue asked, cuddling Vui.

"You never thought it was claustrophobic before, and you know I get him out of the house every few days a week." Red defended himself.

"Well make today one of those days." Blue urged, putting her cheek against Vui's, "Look at 'im. He says, 'I wanna go for a walk'."

"I'm pretty sure that's not what he's saying." Red said with a small smile on his face.

"Oh just humor me." She replied.

"Okay, so Pokémon whisperer, do you also do parties?" Red asked bemusedly.

"If you can call what you do today a party sure." Blue said before standing up, "So, where to first?"

"I thought I'd drop by Prof. Oak's lab before heading out to Viridian." Red answered, "How long have you been here anyway? I only woke up a second ago."

"What, you think I was watching you sleep or something?"

"No, I'm just wondering if you were waiting for a long time."

"I think I've been watching your Pokémon circle each other for a good fifteen minutes."

"Sorry, shouldn't keep a lady waiting, as they say." Red said while he recalled most of his Pokémon.

Blue chuckled, "You're in the best mood today. That's good, it's your birthday and all."

"Well that's not why. Shall we?" Red said as he began to walk.

"We shall. Come on Vui." She called, Vui walked alongside them, Pika sat on Red's shoulder, and you couldn't see him because he was transformed, but Blue's Ditto "Meta-chan" was hidden somewhere on her person, "But Red, I know you don't find your birthday all that special, I mean how many people do after a certain point, honestly. But it's special to us. I mean, me, Yellow, Prof. Oak, Green, your Gym Leader friends, all of the other Pokédex owners in their own way. I mean you're the backbone of a lot of our lives, I can't imagine where I'd be and what I'd be doing if I never met you. So in a lot of ways the day you were born was the most important day for all of us."

"Aw I, I don't know about that." Red said bashfully, rubbing his left hand behind his head.

"Well I do." Blue said bumping him lightly with her elbow, "Have I said happy birthday today?"

"I think you've said plenty." Red replied, exchanging a grateful smile with her.

...

After a sort-of-long-but-not-really morning trekking from the lab through Route 1, scaring off some small, troublesome Pokémon with their larger, stronger, more menacing Pokémon, and to Viridian City, Red and Blue closed in on Viridian Gym. Their visit with Prof. Oak was brief but pleasant, mostly talk about old memories, and a parting gift before the Professor had to get back to work. He felt bad that he didn't make more time for Red on the boy's birthday, but he knew Red only really wanted to do one thing on this day anyway. He'd gotten him a pair of sunglasses, nothing out of his way but Oak felt it would be a nice little gift that wouldn't be too imposing in the event he didn't like them. As they approached the door to the gym, it opened and out came a familiar face.

"Yellow. Hi." Blue spoke up with a renewed smile.

"Hey Yellow."

"Hey you guys. I wondered when you would get here." She greeted in her usual friendly tone as her Pikachu, Chuchu ran from her side to greet Pika, who'd just jumped from Red's shoulder.

"You were here at the Gym?" Red asked.

"Yeah, I knew you two would come here eventually, so instead of looking for you I just decided to come here and wait for you. I was just going to step outside for some air." Yellow explained.

"Yellow, you should really shut the door when you walk out!" Someone else hollered from back inside the building.

"Sorry, they're here Green!" She called back.

She signalled them to follow her and the three of them plus the Pokémon following them went in. Green came up to meet them, having been in the process of inspecting the gym.

"Hey Green." Red greeted.

"Hello." He greeted back.

"What's up?" Red asked.

"Minor renovations. I've spent some of today and most of yesterday cleaning up after a battle I had with a challenger. It got pretty intense considering the battles I usually get."

"Does that mean you're not ready for a battle?" Red asked challengingly.

Green smirked, "I'm always ready, I wouldn't be much of a battler if I wasn't."

"I'm the Battler remember, your title was the Trainer." Red said.

"Yes, so I trained my Pokémon to be better than yours at battling." Green quipped.

"I doubt that, and the trainer giving the commands is an important component in that mix. And I'm better at it than you." Red trashed.

"Pretty big words, you'd better be able to back them up."

"You know I can."

Yellow spoke up, "Wait." The other three turned their attention to her, "I don't want to spoil anyone's fun but Red you just got here, don't you maybe wanna relax, catch up before the battle? And Green your Pokémon have been working pretty hard, shouldn't you let them rest for just a bit?"

"That makes sense but we'd probably just bore him by delaying the battle." Green contested.

"No it's fine, I think this day is as much for my friends as it is for me. Well probably more actually."

"Alright then, there are some rooms in the back of the gym, we can hang out there for a while." Green offered.

...

The back of the Viridian City Gym was actually quite homely. Tables, chairs, a couch, a small kitchen even. Anything one might need. You could probably throw a decent party with what was available. And per Yellow's request the four of them slowly but surely made conversation while their Pokémon lounged about.

In particular, Blue had something she wanted to ask Yellow, "So, listen." Blue began, Yellow perked up attentively, "I know you don't like battling but you know it's just what, Red and Green and, well, Pokémon in general do right. I mean, nobody's going to get hurt."

"No, Blue, I know, it's not about stopping them." She explained, "I just wanted to spend time with you guys, I don't see any of you all that often anymore."

"I'm sorry, you know how it is, a lot happens. Especially recently with my parents." Blue replied.

"There's nothing to be sorry about. Besides we're all here right now. Let's just enjoy that."

"Yeah." Blue finished, Red and Green apparently weren't talking about anything so she decided to break the newfound silence, "So Red."

"Huh?"

"What've you been up to lately?" Blue asked.

"Oh you know, same old. Pallet Town is a quiet place, I lead a simple life." Red answered.

"You're boring Red. How can a League Champion and Pokédex Holder whose taken down Team Rocket no less than three times, and is constantly training to better himself be so boring?" She complained.

"I'm not boring, things are just slow right now. I can't imagine 'staying with my parents' is the thriller of the year." Red retorted.

"I guess everyone's earned themselves a breather after what happened." Yellow said.

"Maybe this battle will have the excitement everyone's craving." Red stated.

"Getting impatient are we?" Green asked.

Red shot him a determined look, evidently getting anxious about the battle in question.

"Hang on." Yellow spoke up, grabbing everyone's attention, "I know I'm being a real buzzkill for you guys but... Don't you think we should do something more, I don't know, birthday-ish? You know, presents, cake, ice cream, cake. Oops I already said cake." She chuckled.

"Usually the battle is the present." Red said.

"And we don't have any cake, I don't have the stuff to make one either. We know we don't usually do it so..." Green took notice of Yellow's expression, one that was trying to hold down a smile, "I know that look."

"You went and got one anyway didn't you?" Blue said.

"Heh heh. They only had chocolate so I hope that's okay with everyone."

Red smiled, "You're such a sweetheart."

"Ah, well, ya know." Yellow replied bashfully.

...

"I hope you enjoyed that cake Red, because you're going to throw it back up when I'm done with you." Green boasted.

"Real nice, must've taken you at least half a minute to come up with that one." Red shot back.

"Seems a bit hostile doesn't it?" Yellow whispered to Blue.

"Yellow, you're so cute when you're naive."

"What?"

"Just let them have their dog fight. It just makes them happy." Blue urged.

"Okay, if you're sure."

"Oh yeah, don't worry, they won't hurt each other." She assured.

The first choice of Pokémon is what begins the tide of a battle, the first thing that puts the trainer closer to the reins of control in the battle. It's a small step though, there is at no point in a battle where there is no hope of turning the tides. It mostly depends on the trainer. And you don't get much better or much closer than Red and Green. Whoever cracks and sends out the first Pokémon usually sets themselves up for a disadvantage, giving their opponent a chance to pick a perfect counter.

But in this case, evenness was everything, at the end of both of their preferred waiting time, as if oncue, they threw the Poké Balls on their belt and released their chosen Pokémon. Red's Poliwrath, "Poli" and Green's Machamp. Green smiled, luck seemed to be on his side today. Poli had a history of losing to Green's Pokémon. He didn't seem to stack well against his team. Green wiped the smile from his face immediately, Red wouldn't use Poli first if he didn't have a plan, he had to stay on his toes.

"Hydro Pump." Red commanded.

Poli shot a powerful jet stream of water from its hand. Machamp, by instinct did a good job of staying out of its range. Red didn't seem worried, the fact that the attack was going seemed to be good enough for him. Machamp ran around the stadium and jumped over the stream, whatever he needed to do to close the gap. Red and Green never wavered they had to keep their expression the same, to look serene, never giving any hints or cues and trying not to so much as blink. Machamp closed the distance and grabbed Poliwrath, waiting for the command it knew was imminent.

"Seismic Toss!"

In little less than a second, Poli was smashed against the ceiling of the gym, "Keep firing." Red yelled. Poli fired again, the water bombarding his opponent below him. As Poli came down Red had to follow up, "Dynamic Punch!"

Poli launched its fist forward just as it fell within reach of Machamp. Machamp blocked it with his two right arms of his four total, still taking damage and per Dynamic Punch's effect, becoming confused, but getting the physically smaller Poliwrath in its grasp.

"Nice work, Seismic Toss again." Green said calmly, but Machamp did not respond, "I said Seismic Toss." Then as Poli casually slipped out of Machamp's unmoving grip, Green noticed a sleekness and frost coming from Machamp's figure, "You froze him."

"That was the plan." Red admitted, "Come to think of it you're defenseless, and I've yet to throw up. If this were a no holds barred battle you'd have just lost."

"Yeah, funny thing about that." The ground around Red and Poli shook, fortunately for Red, he'd been at this long enough to know what to do and dived out of the way immediately, he and Poli moving in opposite directions just as Green's Rhydon burst from the ground, "You didn't actually think you could get the upper hand in the warm up did you?"

"For a second there, I thought I did." Red replied.

Red was ready to engage again. This battle wasn't necessarily different than any other he had ever had with Green, but it was the bliss that it gave him to battle. If nothing else he always needed a battle on his birthday, even if he felt like doing nothing else. Sure, maybe Blue was right about him being boring, he was simple hearted anyway, but battle was all that he was expressed physically. His courage, his caring, his ferocity, his intelligence, his passion, everything about him came together as a perfect whole when in a battle. That's why, even if it wasn't special to him, his friends always thought to challenge him on August 8th. To give him the gift of battle. The only gift he ever really needed.

**This is where I'd put a line break to separate the story from the authors comments if the document editor didn't have it in for me and insist on getting rid of them making it incredibly hard to switch gears without smacking the reader in the face.**

Well, there was that, finally. How many of you feel that your birthday is more than any other day? I mean you know it consciously but how many of you feel it? I'm one of those people who needs to spend his day getting into a birthday mood.

I feel like something I have to realize as a writer is what is true to Pokéspe and what is more or less my own fanon. None of us have the inner workings of the characters that Kusaka has so we can only hope to emulate anyway but I tried to move away from some of my own recurring themes that happen when I take on these characters. For instance, usually one of the first things Blue does to Red in my stories is flirt with and tease him because she does that, but I tend to make it the centerpoint of their interactions whereas in canon it gradually moves away from that to just being a part of their relationship. Further I tend to go more over the top than the canon does when I do so but I lampshade it in stories when Blue is doing it more than usual because I'm aware I'm doing it and the reason for that is that's what's most fun to write about them, those interactions are the funnest to come up with and play out. I don't think it overtakes the two when I write them but here I made a conscious effort to avoid it.

Nothing is more dangerous in this regard I think than the fan theory. When one really likes a theory it gets absorbed into their understanding of the thing in question, and that can have damaging effects. And one of mine comes from the fact that we know Blue spent some time in Pallet Town before heading out again between RGB and Yellow but we don't know the details, like where in Pallet she stayed. So in my stories I have her stay with Red. Of course leaving two people going through puberty of the same age and opposite sex alone in a house they have to themselves with little or no supervision would sound like a terrible idea to most people but this is the Pokémon universe, insert laugh track. It gives me a lot to work with and its possible and maybe more likely that she stayed with Prof. Oak and Green, but, and I'm sorry OldRivalShippers but Blue and Green don't really do anything, they aren't all that close, so from a writer's standpoint it's not as fun. Still I have to remember that's MY addition and I have to remember not to get too attached to it. I know of a guy who's fanon basically prevented him from enjoying Skyward Sword.

I ended up attaching something new on anyway, Blue's really close to Red's Espeon for whatever reason. I guess I just can't help but put my own spin on things, which sounds harmless but it's the same mentality that possesses the fan base to turn Red into Homer Simpson, Yellow into Hinata, Gold into Master Roshi, Blue into every movie cheerleader ever, and Crystal into Batman. Still, despite the added details I hope it isn't enough to stray from the canon and become something completely different like a lot of fics, and I know I'm at least partially as guilty as anyone else in that regard, mostly my earlier work.

Also, even if I keep doing straight text fics I'm getting really sick of ff and am considering switching somewhere else.


	9. The Gift of Battle deleted scene

Here's this. I felt the need to do this because I like Red's story but it felt incomplete. I initially cut some things out for time anyway so I decided to do this. It could also be considered a consolation if I don't get Sapphire's story out by tomorrow. Lot of other stuff going on. Not so much school, I go to school 3 days a week for 3 hours right now, with a total 9 hour school week, so I can't complain. It's more that we have a lot of animals. In particular I need to babysit my sister's puppy. I have something really good planned for Sapphire though, so I hope you'll stick around. Anyway, whether you like it or not, here's this.

...

**The Gift of Battle deleted scene**

"Golduck Hydro Pump!" Green yelled.

Golduck released a powerful blast of water that would make the world's most powerful geysers jealous. It hit its target, Red's Snorlax, but the large Pokémon held firm. Red and Green were both down to their last two Pokémon, Red to Snorlax and Aerodactyl, or Lax and Aero as he preferred to call them, and Green to his Charizard and Golduck. Funny how the last Pokémon they would come down to were their flying Pokémon. Having a flying Pokémon presented interesting and unique approach and escape options, a good trainer needs to devise strategies to utilize those options and know when to apply them.

Red was in trouble, his Aerodactyl was confused, as in the status ailment that caused disorientation in Pokémon, while in the air and holding Red in its talons by the shoulders as he did to transport him through the air. At any moment Areo could spiral into the ceiling, wall or ground. Green was riding on Charizard's back, in an ever so slightly show-offy manner while he was at it. If Red had a leg in this fight left it was that Green was letting his upper hand get to his head. Though much more reserved and cool headed than he had been previously, there were situations where he couldn't hold back his cocky smile. Red was going to need more than that though, he wasn't going to win based on Green's confidence, he needed another angle, _fast_.

"Aero let go." It held on and continued to fly in the abnormal patterns of a drunkard, "Seriously, I'll be fine Aero." Aero crashed into the ceiling in confusion, "Okay, let's try something else." Red said pulling out Aero's Poké Ball.

Putting his hands on Aero's ankles Red pulled and guided the recovering Aero towards Charizard, "A game of chicken huh?" Green said quietly as Charizard and Aero neared each other, "He thinks I won't do it, I'll do it. He knows the consequences I'll do it, I'll, Charizard, Flamethrower!" He commanded.

Charizard breathed an almost magical seeming stream of fire, Red and Aero didn't swerve or slow like Green expected, in fact nothing had changed what Red was going to do, "Supersonic!"

Soundwaves came from Aero's mouth that were on a frequency that Pokémon were particularly sensitive to, causing confusion. Now Red's Aero and Green's Charizard were both affected by this disorientation while carrying their trainers. Red and Aero were able to avoid the flames at the last second and approach at another angle, coming down from above with Aero's Take Down. The attempt missed, it didn't help that Aero was confused and they were speeding through the air at a moving target. Golduck used an attack simply known as Confusion, using psychic energy to attack Aero mentally, which is how it was inflicted with the status ailment "Confusion" in the fist place.

Aero had more than it could take, Red used the Poké Ball he'd been holding to recall it from the air and used the momentum from the flight path to land into his Snorlax's soft but sturdy body, breaking his fall. Snorlax was slow, but he wasn't so slow that Red wouldn't be able to play a defensive strategy no matter how Green positioned himself, this combined with the fact that he was now riding a confused Pokémon forced Green to land. He would have a better chance of success getting Charizard to focus on one task.

And he knew just what task he wanted performed, "Blast Burn!"

"Blast Burn?" Not that she'd been disinterested until this point but this caught Blue's attention more than any prior event in the battle, "Green, I think you're going a bit overboard!" She tried to yell.

But to no avail as the attack was unleashed before Green could've even have realistically considered that statement, what was described as the "Ultimate Fire-type Attack" had been launched. Blue knew of the capabilities of this move and was worried about it specifically because of that, having the "Ultimate Water-type Attack" at her disposal and Red the "Ultimate Grass-type Attack". Red barely had time to initiate a counter attack, which he relayed to Lax much more discreetly. It had just enough time to charge up it's counter attack as the flames narrowed the space between them and their target. Before the final blow was struck, Lax shot a beam of energy, Hyper Beam, one of and for a long time considered the most powerful Pokémon attack, capable of leveling entire cities if used by a powerful enough Pokémon. The beam cut through the flames as they approached, the beam and flames both being non-physical passed through each other, both sure to do unprecedented amounts of damage.

"Crazy sonuva-" Green cut himself off as he dived behind his Charizard with his Golduck.

Collision, dust, smoke, loud noises, all of these things filled the air. Lax and Charizard stumbled in place and fell backwards, forcing their trainers to recall them. There was low visibility but still many possibilities and not much time to decide on one, the next move would require fast action. Blue still had Golduck, who could detect and attack opponents mentally, despite how difficult it was to see, but there was still the general chaos to contend with. Once again it would seem Green had the upper hand but Red had the perfect counter for that.

"Vui!" He called.

His psychic Pokémon left its spot by the bench Blue and Yellow were sitting at and ran after it's trainer, fresh and ready to oppose another psychic opponent, "Confusion!" Red and Green both commanded.

But just as they had a loud and demanding voice shouted "NO!" Red, Green, Vui and Golduck turned to look at who had yelled, it was Blue, she picked her hat up off the floor after it'd been blown off her head, "You're done! Both of you!" She said, dusting off her hat while she did.

Green was aloof to the girl and her attitude but respected her wishes, "Fair enough, I won anyway, Red cheated."

"What? It was a no holds barred battle, it's impossible to cheat by definition." Red retorted.

"You had to call a Pokémon from the sidelines to defend you after I took out your main team." Green boasted.

"You used seven Pokémon, if anybody cheated it was you." Red shot back.

"You never established a number limit."

"In that case why not use your other five?"

"I could but it doesn't mean much if I beat you on numerical advantage alone."

"And yet you used seven under the assumption that I would use six."

"My cheating does not excuse your cheating." Green said jokingly.

Red lightly punched his friend in the arm and then continued, "Me and Vui could take your Gym Leader team by ourselves anyway."

Yellow joined in, "So, you guys, that got pretty crazy, do you think I should heal your Pokémon?"

"I'd rather you not, there's a healing machine in the back and it seems like a waste to have you do it and then sleep the rest of the day away in exhaustion." Green explained.

"Oh, okay." Yellow said with some relief.

"Our Pokémon are fine and they'll be good as new in no time, but it's really cool of you to care so much." Red said.

"Well, ya know, I get that from you. Ever since you first caught Rat-chan for me, I've strived to be like you, I'm not one much for battles but I care about Pokémon. 'Treat them with a kind and gentle heart and they'll always be your friends' isn't that what you said? You're my hero Red, I wouldn't be me without you. That's why your birthday is important to me." Yellow said, getting a big weight off of her chest.

"Aw, thanks. I'm actually really proud of myself right now, you really couldn't have turned out better."

"Heh." The ever outgoing but bashful Yellow blushed lightly, "Sorry I got all serious on you guys just now."

"Oh shut up, I think it was cute." Blue said reassuringly.

Everyone had a smile on their face, today was a good day.

There was a second or two of silence and Green decided to take advantage of it to say what he wanted to say before he was interrupted, "Just so we're clear, you and your Espeon could _not_ take my other six Pokémon."

"Sure we could, Rhydon and Pidgeot are already out, so the only real threat left is Golduck. The other five don't have high enough levels to beat us." Red debated.

"So I would hold you off with Golduck and bombard you with multiple attacks from my other Pokémon." Green replied.

"But Golduck is already battle-weary, my Espeon is fresh to the fight."

"Then I'll have all of them swarm you at once like I trained them to. You can't honestly expect to win against that."

"I do actually. Plus, my bringing in Vui was done at the last minute on a whim. If I had known you were going to use seven earlier I'd have used him sooner, and then I'd have even more Pokémon. I know that because if you hadn't have used seven and stuck to six like I did, you would've been down to one Pokémon when I was down to two, or even one when I was down to three."

Green was unimpressed with Red's slightly longer ramblings, "So you admit to cheating by bringing in an outside Pokémon at the last minute?"

"So you admit to cheating by using seven Pokémon when the de facto number is six?" Red refuted.

"Boys boys," Blue started, putting her hands on their shoulders, "it doesn't matter." She assured them, "Afterall, I would beat you both."

"Oh really?" Green said skeptically.

"You wish." Red replied at about the same time Green did.

The grinning Kanto trio engaged in friendly trash talk while Yellow just smiled at them acceptingly, thinking to herself about how glad she was that she wasn't really a battler.

...

Red's Snorlax has never used Hyper Beam but Snorlax can use it so it works okay. I always thought it was interesting how the six Pokémon limit was more of a strongly encouraged suggestion than an actual rule in Special, but it makes the rules and skills of certain trainers in relation to each other debatable. On the other hand how many trainers in game have six Pokémon on them anyway? By that logic most players are cheats. I don't blame them either, taking care of six animals is hard. The scene with Yellow is something I cut from the "hang out" scene of the initial story I wish I didn't. It might seem a little SpecialShippy, (I just thought isn't the name "SpecialShipping" kind of pretentious? Oh well, still more creatively named than MangaQuest) but this is how I view Red and Yellow's relationship, hero and idolizer. And I've been trying to use the Japanese nicknames just because. I'll never use the Japanese names for the Pokémon, because it's not a Zenigame, it's a Squirtle, that's just how I am, I was introduced to them to young and I've been with Pokémon too long to change my habits now, not even with the slightly more dignified term "Pocket Monsters". So I don't know why I've been wanting to lean to the Japanese nicknames but I don't know if I ever want to call Yellow's Raticate "Rat-chan" again, when the rest of it is in English, it just feels too out of place weeaboo-ish for my taste. Me using the Viz translation names is even less likely since I don't read Viz's version, I have a contact in Singapore, so I read Chuang Yi.

So, in this situation or overall, after listening to their argument who's right, Red or Green? Also I know Blue and Red battled in the Dex Holder tournament at the end of Emerald, since Crystal revealed she lost to Blue and the winner of their match was set to fight Red, and the winner of that likely had to fight Green since I doubt Ruby would win in their battle. Not that Ruby is a slouch by any means, he'd give as good as he got but I don't think he could overtake Green. However since we only know the outcome of Crystal vs Blue it can't really be discussed so I didn't have them bring it up in their trash talk. I would think Red would win against Blue and Green. Probably Emerald too, excluding things like a fluke or Red throwing the match so Emerald can be the champion, Emerald is generally believed to have won the tournament based on the fact that he had the final Frontier Symbol, but we only saw them all lumped together so maybe not. It's too bad, the other half of the roster seems pretty interesting to me, Sapphire vs Gold and Sapphire vs Silver would be interesting. A rematch between Gold and Silver seems appropriate, though I think Silver might have a slight advantage since he was winning the fight he had with Gold before he got called away. On the other hand Gold has Togetaro. Ash's Pikachu aint got nothin' on Togetaro. Too bad he didn't have it in the tournament, it'd probably leave him behind and win the whole thing on it's own. And anyone of them would be a good match for Emerald. I think he would beat Yellow since she's probably not serious about getting to the end anyway. He beat Ruby but Ruby was battling more to help Sceptile remember who it was. Would he have won if Ruby was going all out, and he and Sapphire both lost to Tucker but Sapphire had a psychological disadvantage against Tucker's Salamance so how well does Emerald really stack up?

I would like to see any combination of battles between the Johto and Hoenn Dex Holders really, they're about the same in team levels(50's) and experience minus Emerald. The Johto trainers probably have a slight advantage but it would be cool to see. The Kanto trio is too much though. Yellow is an odd case but I point FRLG and say this; if they stakes are low, she'd probably(with varying degrees of difficulty but probably not with _total_ domination) lose but if the stakes are high you would need to be one of the Kanto trio to stand a chance. ANYWAY sorry to have bored you all with my ramblings being the only Special fan who gives a crap about battles.


End file.
